Incalculability
by Aenigmatic
Summary: After the sacking of Asgard, a journey to Svartalfheim goes terribly wrong. But in a bid to exact vengeance, those who think themselves strong learn there are things that are hidden beyond what they can perceive.
1. Chapter 1

**Incalculability**

**Summary:** After the sacking of Asgard, a journey to Svartalfheim goes terribly wrong. But in a bid to exact vengeance, those who think themselves strong learn there are things that are hidden beyond what they can perceive.

**Rating:** T

**Author's notes:** Just my own twisted (and ship-induced) AU take on the trailer for _Thor: The Dark World_. This is probably as anti-canon as it gets. Apart from the fantastic, sassy scene where Jane slaps Loki, I have no idea whether we could come to expect any more interaction between these two, so this is my mind making up for it in a series of short scenes. This was originally meant to be a one-shot, or rather, my way of trying to provide a Loki/Jane spin for the second movie, but it's getting slightly out of hand at the moment. I'm just splitting this into maybe two or three parts.

oOo

The unnatural silence only amplifies the pounding of her heart.

Jane swallows hard as a brightly-lit glass enclosure comes into sight, the only beacon of light in all-encompassing darkness. Only the reassuring presence of Thor by her side gives her the courage she needs to shuffle forward for a closer look.

In the forgotten bowels of Asgard, an emaciated man sits motionless with his back to the wall, his face shielded by a long mane of hair so dark that it seems to repel light.

He is in dire need of a haircut.

Straight on the heels of that inappropriate and ridiculous thought comes hysterical laughter that Jane tries to stifle as she tries to reconcile this helpless man with the one who tried to destroy New York. He's a figure straight out of mythology, now paying his dues, caged and powerless, suffering a form of humiliation that Odin has seen fit to mete out for a disgraced prince of Asgard who had thought himself fit to sit on a throne.

It's a fitting punishment and one that hits at the heart of a megalomaniac's tendencies, or so she reminds herself with indignation and more than a smidgen of fear, because of the destruction he'd wrought on New York and whatever war crimes he'd committed in the name of trickery.

The god by her side takes a step towards the enclosure, his face hard as he faces a brother who refuses to acknowledge him as such. Jane chooses not to follow, hanging back in the shadows that shield her from Loki's sight and perception.

"After all this time, now you come to visit your brother. Why? To mock?"

A contemptuous voice rings out, eloquent and modulated such that it sounds as though he'd spoken directly into her head. For a second, Jane panics and wonders about the strength of Odin's protective magic that fortifies this place. Then she realises that he has merely spoken aloud and with some relief, tries to excuse her skittishness as a typical reaction to meeting a criminal.

The fallen prince finally lifts his head, revealing even from this distance, a pair of unnaturally sharp green eyes that seem to see everything – even the things which are hidden, like her fear. There's fierce, calculating intelligence in them and from where she stands, it's easy to imagine that they are tinged with a measure of madness.

Thor however, wastes no time in getting to the point. "I need your help."

"You must be truly desperate, to come to me for help." Loki simply stands with casual grace, turning his back to them and looks out of the other side of the glass wall.

The silence that ensues is deliberate.

For all that Jane has been told about Loki by Thor, nothing prepares her for the predatory presence that makes her feel as though she's the incarcerated one.

"Loki." Thor's harsh impatience cuts through the thick tension, but does nothing to alleviate the knot anxiety that's building in her gut. "Asgard is overrun."

The mournful note of desperation that enters Thor's voice makes Jane's heart break for the amazing place that the greatest of poets probably can't put words to. As short-lived as her presence has been on Asgard, she has seen sights so strongly imprinted in her memory banks that she knows will not fade until her last breath leaves her mortal body. In this realm where magic and science reside harmoniously in a way that she can never in her lifetime fully understand, it had merely taken her a fraction of a second to accept that Asgard has been and should continue to be a separate world from Midgard.

There had been a growing darkness, an inexplicable spate of disasters that brought Thor back to Earth and straight back to Asgard with her in tow in a move so sudden that all she could do was to simply hold on for the ride.

A part of her is relieved that he hadn't forgotten her. Another part however, cynically wonders if Thor would have even returned had Earth not been threatened.

But what she hadn't known then was that she had been simply savouring the last days of bliss and peace in the Realm Eternal.

Asgard had indeed been overrun, as have Vanaheim and Midgard, she'd learned later on, sacked by a power that has been barely held at bay by Odin's protective spells. The sudden attack of the dark elves of Svartalfheim at the behest of Malekith had come without warning, an efficient, horrifying blitzkrieg that had scattered the elite guard of Asgard and slain many of their finest warriors.

Only the place where Loki was kept – the most forsaken corner of the Realm Eternal that was not even worth mentioning – had been left intact and forgotten.

They needed Loki, as Thor had told her solemnly, an hour after he and the Asgardian soldiers had barely held the fort down. His disgraced brother was, after all, the only one who knew how to travel between realms without the Bifrost and it was the magic he alone wielded that could counter what Malekith planned to unleash.

In response, Jane had only nodded numbly, frozen in shock, after seeing the enormous amount of bloodshed over a short period of time. There wasn't much else that she could have mustered up in an attack that had literally turned over worlds in minutes.

"Have you nothing to say, brother?"

Thor's irate cry brings Jane back to the present. Finally, she sees the god of mischief turn around, his clenched fists the only indication of simmering emotion that is completely lacking on his angular face. But the smile that slowly stretches across Loki's face as his only response to Thor's plea is at best, enigmatic and sinister, and one that Jane cannot read.

But what exactly, had she hoped to achieve by accompanying Thor in that impulsive moment when she insisted on going to Loki's prison with him? A chance to catch a glimpse of the god who'd tried to subjugate Earth from a safe distance, the same way humans caged wild animals in zoos, thinking that an enclosure limited their potential to cause harm? Or had she, in some way, hoped to understand what had driven Loki to commit the misdeeds simply by taking a look at him up close? To set his atrocious deeds within a framework of sorts that made sense to her?

It's only as she's standing here, separated by an innocuous glass panel, that the magnitude of her delusional thoughts hits her.

As though Jane had spoken her thoughts aloud, the trickster snaps his head up a fraction to glare at her, even though Thor has long assured her that Loki's magic is securely bound by the four walls of his enclosure.

"I see you've brought company." Loki takes few steps forward in his glass cage until he's standing in her direct line of sight. "The little mortal," he pauses, his eyes piercing the darkness where she stands, "You would do well to fear me."

Suddenly, Jane's not entirely sure if Odin's all-encompassing magic reaches that far down in this forgotten corner of Asgard. A comforting weight that's Thor's arm falls on her shoulder, an action that reassures her less than she'd hoped. It's ancient, timeless magic that brought her here; it's that selfsame magic she hopes is greater than the caged mage's that will get her out of there.

Safely.

Or would it?

"You touch her and I will kill you." Thor's threatening growl simply makes Loki's smile widen.

"So quick to attribute any treacherous deed to my name," Loki says with a smirk as he moves to stand with his hands behind his back, his dishevelled appearance doing nothing to detract from his commanding stance. "Perhaps I should be flattered by the manner by which you judge the extent of my powers to think that I could even touch your mortal from where I stand."

Jane resists the urge to bolt. The hostile words that Thor and Loki exchange however, give her pause. Their soured relationship had only been a recent development, or at least that was what she'd managed to glean from the little Thor had spoken about Loki.

_We grew up together, fought together, laughed together. I would give my powers just to get back the brother that I know and remember. _

That was all that he'd said after she'd asked about New York. Left to her own conclusions, all she could piece together was an incomplete tale of two brothers who were once inseparable, torn apart by the younger one's ambition and jealousy.

Or had she gotten it wrong altogether?

"I don't trust you." Thor's proclamation cuts through her musings as she hears the resigned sadness in his voice.

The smirk on Loki's face drops momentarily, replaced by a sudden, hollow expression that flits by so quickly that she nearly misses it. "If you did, you'd be the fool I always took you for."

"As I said, I see no choice but to do so in the matter."

As though a switch is flipped, an unholy light of menacing mischief starts to fill those green, green eyes, making a thrill of exhilarated terror snake up her spine – a perfectly timed reminder that he's dangerous and…insane.

"Excellent. Where do we begin?"


	2. Chapter 2

By Yggdrasil…

Where the grounds of the palace once reflected the shimmering luminescence of the Odin-force, Loki finds himself striding across broken concrete as repulsive as Midgardian flooring.

It is however, the least of his concerns as he breathes in the aftermath of battle.

The scent of shed blood is in the air and it pleads for vengeance.

Its silvery, tangy edge hits Loki full in the face the moment he steps out of his glass cage and onto what used to be the wide boulevards that lead straight into the heart of the Realm Eternal. The shrill voices of slain Asgardians cry out incessantly to him the way the blood of pathetic mortals of Midgard can never do; it is a waterfall of rage that easily breaks through his carefully-constructed barriers, nearly sending him to his knees. By willpower alone, he holds himself upright and resists emptying the contents of his stomach out onto the hard ground, steadying himself instead with a deep breath of acrid smoke.

He abhors weakness; above all, his own.

In the air, the residue of the dark elves' magic is strong. He carefully sifts through the odours, ignoring the curious looks of Thor and the mortal. From the mix of soot and thick fog, an unmistakable smell lingers. It assaults his nostrils and points only to the _seiðr_ of a being that time has seemingly forgotten up until now. Taking another sniff, he realises with a jolt that the bonds of Malekith's dark magic have strengthened a thousand fold.

Yet…the signature of Malekith's magic is…weakened. Or so it seems.

Confounding, indeed.

Frowning, he crouches down and lightly disturbs the dust with a finger, then tilts his hand towards the brightness of Asgard's constellations. The residue is an amalgam of black and grey with the slightest tinge of red sparkles the exact shade as the dying light of a sun. The dust slides of its own accord down his finger and back to where it came from, disappearing into a dimension that, for some inexplicable reason, seems hidden from him.

Briefly, Loki considers all the possibilities of this magical…anomaly. Whatever accounts for the sudden increase in Malekith's power is something he intends to find out, but it is precious knowledge that he will keep to himself, until he deems the time right to reveal its potential bargaining power. He is under no illusions that he's freed for a single reason – to hunt the Accursed one. As confident as he is in his abilities, he has no intention of returning to that cage of humiliation when all this is over.

"What do you see, brother?"

Thor's voice rumbles through the ruins and Loki fights not to react to that hypocritical epithet. Instead, he stays silent for long moments, then raises his head to look into Thor's serious eyes and the swirling emotions that Jane Foster lacks any ability to hide.

"Malekith grows strong," he finally says, a small smirk appearing on the sides of his lips.

"That's stating the obvious." All eyes swing to the mortal who speaks.

Thor visibly tenses at the sharpness in her tone but it wrangles a genuine chuckle out of him, though it's not without malice.

So there is more to her than meets the eye, like an ant that seeks a quarrel with a boot, Loki thinks with a sly, inward sneer.

"You have heart, Jane Foster."

His cool green gaze finds blazing, defiant amber eyes and holds them captive. It surprises him that there lies something beneath what he'd assumed to be yet another vacuous wench who so fits the entirely predictable behaviours of Thor's previous bed-warmers. Guileless and almost…insolent, Jane Foster seems almost as if-

In a flash of red and silver, Loki finds Mjolnir shoved roughly under his chin in a move that halts his musings. "You will speak to Lady Jane with respect."

He simply grins more widely at how easily Thor gets…upset. In many ways, his false brother hasn't changed, as much as his altered behaviour in Asgard has helped proclaim him worthy to be ruler in Odin's stead.

But where the mortal is concerned, Thor's affections seem to remain as constant as it had been two Midgardian years ago. Why and how exactly, had this mortal woman bewitched Thor and made him soft? Wherein lay her appeal that Odin himself had deigned to offer her sanctuary in Asgard? Surely it could not have been merely her ordinary visage that had captivated him? Or perhaps it's the spark of rebelliousness that has her small, mortal body quivering in anger…or in fear? The sheer, audacious boldness and daring that many wouldn't have in the face of gods?

These are questions which Loki has asked himself a multitude of times.

And he knows the answer is found in that small mortal who tries to be clever with her words and reaches for what is beyond her. What else would explain Thor's seemingly changed stance towards a realm he hadn't bothered about since he was a child?

Whatever secrets that are hidden within Jane Foster's person, Loki thinks he will relish finding out.

Inclining his head in a mocking show of supplication, he steps up the game of dominance that is twisted, familiar ground. "As you wish, _my prince_."

Wariness cuts deep lines in Thor's scowling face. "Your mischief has wrought much misery, strife and chaos in the realms. And now, you will fool no one with your nefarious schemes and war mongering ways."

Loki wants to laugh. Mischief and misery? The former is both latter's archenemy and its perfect counterbalance. There cannot be one without the other. Thor, it seems, has not learnt this precious lesson.

"And what if it were a _nefarious_ plan of mine that would help bring about Malekith's downfall? You, of all warriors, have surely witnessed how the Asgardian ranks fell under the superior strength of the Dark Elves," he counters with a smirk, raising a deliberate hand to move Mjolnir away from his chin with a forceful tug. "The only question that remains, Odinson, is whether you place every confidence in me to lead you into Svartalfheim using mischief and trickery?"


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Maybe this is getting a bit longer than I thought. Thank you so much for your reviews and your thoughts, and thanks for reading! _

* * *

It's only later that Loki learns that his release is not without condition. He is to be fettered at his wrists the moment they step out of Asgard, bound laughably by a pathetic band of rare metal that is strengthened in addition by an invisible ring of Odin's restraining power. Even deep in Odin-sleep, the All-father's power still cages him.

It is yet another slight that joins the rest of Odin's wrongdoings.

As they walk through the great hall, no one meets his eyes nor pays him any attention. Where there was once open distrust and suspicious looks, there is now a veil of mourning. At least until their dead have been sent off to the halls of Valhalla before order and routine are restored in Asgard's gleaming great hall.

Yet it's not as though Loki cares, because he doesn't.

Being a prisoner of Odin's magic in Asgard's dungeons has given him world enough and time to come to the terms with the fact that he will always be an outsider on the fringes looking in, a Jotunn runt who has played dress-up in a prince's clothing for millennia. Even though his magical abilities far surpass the physical might of Thor, it has always been and will always be looked on with disdain by the warrior ranks that swell Asgard's hallways.

Or perhaps it was him who had been blind all along not to have discerned it all, when all he'd lived and seen was a life of entitlement and privilege. But no amount of regret or wishing can reverse time, or change the type of blood that courses through his veins.

Loki walks on, with his head held high. Foolish sentiment, after all, is not one of his better indulgences.

To the left of the throne room are his personal chambers, left untouched since he fell from the Bifrost and somehow, strangely undamaged from the siege of Asgard. Its familiarity provides no comfort as he simply sees it as a utility to facilitate what he needs to do.

Shutting his eyes, Loki finally allows his magic to unspool around his thin frame.

When he emerges from his chambers, he's back in his armour, already focusing at the task that awaits them in Svartalfheim and ignoring the looks of amazement that Thor's little party tries to hide.

He looks different in his leathers and he knows it. Taller, more imposing, more formidable. It is his second skin, a flimsy, physical layer of protection that plays its bit part in shielding hurt and resentment long enough so that he can channel them into destructive anger that he's all too willing to allow to course through his veins again.

Then he sees a flash of burnished metal in front of him and tightens his jaw.

The damned bindings await him, the _only_ condition of his release that is guaranteed to cut him straight to the core.

Stoically, Loki raises his hands and lets Thor place them on him. They tighten on their own until they are snug around his wrists, and then it is as though a large reservoir of strength leaves him. Instantly, he knows that his magic so briefly returned to him is gone again, absorbed into the deceptively thin band that is of the same make as Mjolnir and Gungnir, forged in the heart of a dying star and imbued with Odin's own brand of sorcery. Suddenly, the deep well of feeling he's used to nursing is strangely muted and for a moment, he feels sheer relief that the voices crying for justice are silenced. How long has it been since he had been able to think and move without the ever-present spectre of pain and inferiority hanging over his head?

But as much as he appreciates that strange peace, the magical restraints also envelop him within a disorienting web of undefined silence and he finds that the pulsing adrenaline of pending battle lies frustratingly – and alarmingly – beyond sight and perception.

Knowing the futility of what he's about to do, Loki tests the strength of the Uru in his bindings, sending out a brush of his own weakened magic into the core of the metal. The effect is jarring and instantaneous as the metal _pushes_ _back_, a manifestation of the powerful Odin-force that swirls within its boundaries.

He restrains himself from snarling in frustration. Apart from the humiliation of being led around like a chained animal, his senses are dangerously dulled and utterly ineffective against any ambush of the enemy. There are some things he can do, yet they are petty tasks that would do nothing except to keep himself barely comfortable.

His magic is necessary if they were to survive the oncoming onslaught.

But no one in this farce of a travelling party seems to possess the knowledge of breaking these bonds. And that, he thinks, is yet another presumptuous decision of Odin All-father that's severely lacking in foresight, the price of which might in the end, prove too high for Asgard to pay.


	4. Chapter 4

Words cannot begin to describe the arduous journey that had begun in earnest once Loki bent the hidden pathways in Yggdrasil's branches and forced them to bow to his will.

Jane's entrance into Svartalfheim is an abrupt journey through a vacuum that sucks all the breath from her lungs as she traverses a million light-years in a dizzying second that seems to last an eternity. She stumbles onto the hard ground heaving and panting, and for the umpteenth time, curses Thor's need to have her perpetually at his side even as they edge into battle with the dark elves.

When her eyes get used to the darkness, she realises that she is standing on an elevated plane surrounded by the jagged tops of encircling cliffs that fade into inky blackness. From this vantage point, the forbidding landscape stretches for miles around, an unchanging gradient of slate grey and black punctuated only by the glint of several rivers that meander through the floodplains in the distance. She shuffles forward uncertainly, then gasps when her foot scrapes the edge of the cliff.

A hard hand clamps onto her upper arm and pulls her back roughly until she stumbles backwards and falls onto her rear.

"Quiet!"

For a moment, Jane simply sits still in bewildered shock, wondering what the hell just happened. Only when her heartbeat returns to normal does she belatedly realise that Loki has teleported them onto the top of a cliff heavily shielded by trees that seem to obscure all light.

And that it had been him who had pulled her back to safety.

But before she can ponder that action, a gentler hand pulls her up and dusts her off as she looks at her saviour with gratitude. Thor's kindness is a soothing balm, but it does not disguise the fact that her presence is unwanted and unwelcome to all but Thor.

The honest truth is that she couldn't agree more, her voice having been the loudest one to object when Thor himself had insisted on the burden he'd placed on himself to ensure that she stayed safe and by his side at all times. Even Loki shouting his own murderous protests at the additional load they were to bring along hadn't been enough to change Thor's mind.

But what really, had she come to expect? That she'd be left in the care of the overtaxed healers in Asgard until Thor and Loki returned triumphant – if they did at all? Or that she'd happily settle into a stilted role carved for her as a citizen of Asgard and possible consort of the god of thunder in the millennia to come?

The mental image of a cage had been a spontaneous but traitorous insert in her mind and one that strangely enough, resembled the sort of enclosure in which Loki himself had been imprisoned. If the trappings of academia had been a beleaguered experience in her years of fighting for professional acceptance, imagining herself on a throne of duty was simply a gilded coop of a different sort.

It certainly hadn't been the life that she'd ever envisioned for herself when she began studying the stars. And perhaps it was this sense of panic and rising anger that had enabled her to do what she'd never thought she'd do in a million years.

She'd slapped Loki, an action borne out of unthinking reflex that Jane knew she would have thought twice about if she'd had both time and chance to ponder it. It was, as she'd said, for New York, but maybe, just maybe it was also an expression of unspoken frustration that after all this time, she'd seen so much and achieved so little.

In the face of her bravado and anger, Loki had simply told her that he liked her as his smirk turned into a grin that was both a threat and a promise of something more.

The problem was, she wasn't too sure that the Silvertongue had been lying then.

oOo

The angry, hushed whispers reach her corner of the tent, jerking her rudely awake. Rolling over and out of her makeshift cot, Jane creeps closer to the tent opening to listen.

"Release me at once."

"I cannot."

"You _will_ not. That is the difference."

A hiss of frustration issues from Thor's lips. "You do not understand-"

"I don't? With Mjolnir, you can break these. _They_ are of the same make as Mjolnir. Look around you, Odinson! I need my magic. Otherwise I will be as useless as your friends in battle with the Svartalfar."

"Father had already said that it is not yet time. Perhaps when we finally open a wide enough pathway for the Asgardian troops will you finally get what you seek. And there is nothing except-"

A mocking chuckle cuts Thor off. "And you take Odin's words as complete truth? He, who has seen fit to disguise what you now know as my _true_ heritage, _brother mine_? Perhaps it is your foolishness will be our defeat."

"Loki, he is also your fath-"

"_Speak_ no more of this!"

And then there is silence, tense and uneasy.

The conversation however, replays in her mind to no end.

Hadn't Thor told Loki that his bindings were held together by the life force of Odin himself, or was that a lie, as inconceivable as it seems? Had Loki thought that Thor simply wanted to keep him under subjugation for as long as he could? Or had Odin truly assumed that Loki's diminished powers would suffice in Svartalfheim in a gesture of hubristic arrogance that so archetypically exists in beings who pride themselves miles above human understanding?

What exactly did it take to break Loki's cuffs? If now wasn't the right time, then when exactly is it? Yet there had to be another way, as Thor's words seemed to have hinted at, before Loki's infuriated rejoinder cast doubt on Odin's intentions.

Wherever the answer lies, the decision to keep Loki bound is not one she understands herself.

Not for the first time, Jane finds herself pondering the unbridgeable rift between Thor and Loki. She knows that things hadn't always been that way. That much Thor has already mentioned. Yet nothing quite adds up to the angry, bitter god of mischief that she now sees, so full of hatred for his own brother.

To her, it is another piece of a jigsaw puzzle that has been millennia in the making.

The sound of approaching footsteps makes Jane hurry back to her cot where she bundles herself up hurriedly and turns away from the tent opening. She keeps herself still until Thor's movements stutter into silence at the other side of the tent, then squeezes her eyes shut.

Sleep, however, is an elusive entity that sweeps like mist over her head and into nothingness.

oOo

The attack that comes a few hours later is a swift offensive that splits the land in half in the still of the perpetual night. In a blinding flash of lightning and thunder, Mjolnir breaks the ranks of the advancing troops as the skies swirl an ominous purple.

With horror, Jane sees Loki struggle futilely with his bindings, an expression of rage and frustration tight on his face as the Svartalfar army materialises through the dense foliage much too close for comfort. Reflexively, she clumsily pulls a dagger out of its sheath and shifts into a slight crouch, biting down a hysterical laugh at the thought of wielding it as a weapon.

Then all hell breaks loose.

Mjolnir's next elongated trajectory through the skies unleashes a torrent of destruction on the landscape just as the eerie battle cry of the frontline troops echo through the ruined glade. The next harsh flash of lighting that the hammer summons illuminates blanched and humanoid faces that glow an unearthly white, thirsty for bloodlust.

If her conception of battle had, until then, been meagre, Jane now witnesses in a heartbeat what many wouldn't in several lifetimes.

To her left, Loki is locked in combat with several dark elves. Even without his magic, he's quick enough to avoid their blows through sheer strategy and cunning, sidestepping his way through them as he takes them down with calculated moves. With the cuffs still firmly locked around his wrists, his every move is still executed with grace and deadly precision.

But the dark elves keep coming. Her dagger goes momentarily slack in her hand as she sees another hulking figure creep up from behind him as he is busy dispatching yet another soldier.

Loki's their best bet out of this godforsaken place. And right now, Jane's willing to do what it takes to ensure that happens. Without thinking too much, she shouts his name, throws her small blade at him, and prays that her aim isn't pathetically off.

He whirls around instantly, the dark blood of the slain elves thick on his face and snatches the blade out of the air, then slides it hard into the elf behind him. With a yell, he shoves the bulk of the solider off him and in the next second, takes another three down with her dagger.

The carnage is making her head spin. As though from a distance, she hears Thor shout a warning as she is pulled behind him.

"Jane," he whispers her name, running a light finger down her cheek in a gesture so heartbreaking that she can't help but nod in response, in what she hopes is a shaky but reassuring manner.

But Thor isn't looking at her anymore. He's raising Mjolnir towards the heavens, commanding the elements of nature with a sure hand as the hammer begins to weave a protective net of lightning bolts around the area where they stand. Caught in the eye of a perfect storm, the scientist in her rushes to understand the process of charge separation that happens so close to the surface of the ground. The mortality that is inherent in her frame simply shivers from the massive static discharge of the energy that Mjolnir is producing as she flinches at the sharp brightness and the crackling of accompanying thunder.

Yet even Thor's brilliant mesh of fortification does not seem to be enough. The first of the dark elves leap through the gaps in the cracking earth just as he swings Mjolnir hard into the mud, isolating their platform from those that attempt to scrabble for level ground. The elves fall into the newly-formed gorge, their screams issuing from their open mouths as high-pitched wails that make her instinctively clap her hands over her ears.

But how long can this defence be sustained before Thor and Loki are gradually worn down to the point of collapse?

The answer to that question comes abruptly in the next second.

The dark elves suddenly retreat, disappearing through the destroyed foliage as the noise of battle is reduced to the harsh splatter of the driving rain on muddy ground. Mjolnir finally whirls to a halt in Thor's open palm, leaving the lingering scent of ozone in its trail as the bolts of lightning that had formed her temporary safe haven disappear.

What she hears after that heartbeat of silence reduces thunder and lightning to a parody of weather systems.

Through the driving rain and mud, she sees Malekith emerge from nowhere, a hulking figure in black and white that is monstrously familiar. And by his side, is his faithful minion, Algrim the Strong.

There is little that Malekith needs to do to break up an indefensible party of three.

In a flash of grey, white and black, she sees Loki fall to his knees and Thor in mid-swing of his hammer as he mouths her name, then the ground drops beneath her feet without warning. Cast fifty feet into the air with an invisible, choking hold over her neck and tethered to nothing but the web of magic that Malekith is forcing upon her, Jane can't even scream as everything turns a searing white in her field of vision.


	5. Chapter 5

_Jane…_

_Loki…_

The descending fog obscures his vision. With a hoarse shout, Thor heaves Mjolnir into the air in a bid to clear the heavy atmosphere, but she is not in sight.

And neither is Loki.

A hard fist in his face is the consequence of his panicked distraction. Blinking once, Thor sees Algrim above him, readying his next blow. He leaps to his feet and grits his teeth, pushing Loki and Jane out of his mind for now, then slams Mjolnir hard into Algrim's armoured chest.

The dark elf staggers backwards, momentarily stunned by the blow. But Thor knows enough about the brute strength of the dark elves to recognise that Algrim's strength is more than a match for Mjolnir's strike.

In his peripheral vision, Malekith simply stands watching. With a roar of anger, Thor trades blows with Algrim, knowing that the underling has merely been sent as an assessment of his own strength.

He has neither time nor patience for this.

Crouching downwards with a curse, Thor sends Algrim sprawling onto the ground in a move that he has once observed on Midgardian broadcast screens. Then he commands the hammer once again, this time pouring the raw elements that swirl around them into the hammer's next trajectory as it fashions the straightest path to Malekith. At his swing, Mjolnir whistles through the roaring wind just as Malekith's smile turns unpleasant.

In the next second, the accursed one raises a hand and the hammer stalls in midair before it is swallowed by darkness and fog, consumed by the very elements that it commands.

For a long moment, Thor stands shocked and bereft of his beloved weapon, horrified by the sheer power that splits part of the space-time dimension. It is power the likes of which he has ever seen before – power too strong to simply be of the realm of the dark elves – but rather one what runs the whole gamut of colours and signatures that seem to reek of primeval fire rather than the scent of moss, soot and dying embers.

But before he can track Mjolnir's location, the ruined glade cracks open beneath his feet at Malekith's unspoken command.

Then he falls into the yawning chasm, stretching out for purchase every excruciating metre downwards, until his bloodied fingers catch the sharp edge of a ledge and hold on. At the end of the abyss is not the void that he expects but an unending molten lake that consumes all.

Grunting as his muscles strain with the effort of holding his weight, an anguished wail reaches his ears as Malekith's underling is not spared this judgement. To his left, Algrim tumbles into the chasm a minute later after he does, a small, dark blot in the acidic rush of steam that scores the skin. Looking down, he sees a rapidly-disappearing figure whose screams diminish as waves of fire leap off the lake's surface to snatch greedily at their prize.

Thor squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to relive that moment as a lung-piercing mass of vapour and steam washes across his face. Drawing from a quickly depleting reservoir of strength, he clings onto the ledge as the rocks shudder violently from Malekith's machinations.

And then, there is only heat.

oOo

_You are a weak, fallen prince of Asgard. I have no use for you._

Malekith's silent taunts carve insidious paths in his head, making his fists clench in helpless anger in the face of truth. He's neither of Asgard, nor a prince. _Fallen_ goes merely a way to describe what he is.

Loki looks down, then realises that he isn't kneeling and incapacitated in the roiling mud any longer. But there's soft, damp moss beneath him and the cavernous silence finally registers on his befuddled senses.

The newly forged war with Svartalfheim is far from over, but this battle has been laughably short-lived. Two…against hundreds, or even thousands. And Thor's grand plan once again bites the dust, the same way it did not too long ago in Jotunheim.

It's all that he remembers after Thor and Malekith's pathetic underling locked horns in combat before Malekith's magic shunted him out of the way. He's not there to witness that precious fight, but there's much to take pleasure in just knowing that the great Asgardian hero has met his lumbering match.

Loki rolls to his feet, wincing at the bruising in his ribs. Without his magic, his battle moves are sluggish, as though they are made by an amateur who has just stepped out for his first skirmish. And without the gossamer web of protection it provides, his body seems to take on the same, wretched limitations as a mortal's. He looks with no small amount of disgust at his bindings; despite everything, they stay stubbornly on.

Resolutely ignoring the discomfort that they bring at present, he takes stock of his subterranean surroundings, observing the long, winding way that slopes downwards. For several minutes, he slowly follows the trail towards the faintest sound of rushing water.

It is a cave of sorts then, Loki concludes grimly as he stops to think, and one that opens out eventually into a river. And hopefully not one that ends with a sudden, thousand-foot drop down a ravine. It isn't the most ideal situation that he has found himself in – at least not for a millennium – but he knows all he needs is time to get himself out of yet another fix that isn't his own doing.

That much of practice he has gotten, especially in his early forays with Thor and Odin in some of Yggdrasil's hidden pathways.

A small, soft groan brings him into an instinctive half-crouch and he stills to listen carefully for movement. The sound echoes off the uneven walls again, accompanied by the harsh grating of loose rock abrading hard ground. Conscious of predators that might be lurking in the dark corners, Loki moves forward with cautious steps, bracing himself for a potential fight. With his hands more useless than they've been in a long while, he knows that-

A small form lies curled up at the next turn, partially covered by the grey-green cloak of an Aesir.

Thor's little mortal.

"Jane Foster."

Loki speaks her name softly, dark amusement overcoming his initial surprise. Of all the beings that he could have found in this forsaken hole, he finds _her_.

Dirtied, bruised and rattled.

A calculated smile edges the corners of his lips upwards. Perhaps the Norns had for once, cast the dice of fate in his favour, after all.

Her eyelids flutter open, widening in alarm as she sees him. Then she shifts, revealing several cuts on her face and what is most likely a bruised body judging from the angle in which she slumps against the narrow walls of the cave.

"Loki." She squeaks his name and the trepidation that he hears brings a measure of satisfaction. Then she clears her throat and grates out, "Where's Thor?"

He raises his brows slowly at the concern that she shows for that oaf. "You assume that I am his keeper."

"No, I-" She breaks off, shakes her head, then stares at him like a problem she cannot figure out.

If there's anything that tips him over that fine line that he has been treading ever since Thor had placed his hands in fetters, it's the condescension he feels from being treated like an object to be examined under a curious mortal's gaze – a mortal for whom in the recent months, he has carefully nursed a growing hate.

He spears her with a hard warning look and takes perverse pleasure in waiting for her to complete that sentence. "You _what_?"

But if she had seen him bristling, there was little indication of it in her next words.

"I don't know," she confesses as she moves a hand to her shoulder and gasps as her fingers ghost over a part of her flesh that is still hidden by the cloak. "One minute I was up in the air, and the next, I'm…god knows where, thinking I'm going to die _here_. And I know you're dangerous and all and I have every reason to fear this…to fear _you_, but right now, frankly, I'm…just, you know…just happy to see a familiar face."

Her rambles seem to have exhausted her. But apparently, she isn't done talking. Taking a deep breath, she tries to continue but ends up stuttering and slurring feebly, "-and…uh, it hurts."

_A familiar face? _

Loki stares back at her, fighting back the surprise at her words and the short, non-sequitur ending. That she knows what he is capable of and _fears_ it is exactly what he expects…and wishes. But that she is also _happy_ to see an enemy – a monster that he knows he is – lies beyond his comprehension.

The pain from her injuries must have loosened her tongue and cracked her head.

"You are foolish to presume that I am not capable of doing you harm as Malekith can."

She barks a short laugh, then winces as she shifts minutely to hoist herself up more comfortably. "Oh, I know what you are," she tells him wearily. "The whole shebang about New York, the major daddy issues. But right now," she nods towards his restraints, "and you're in not much better a state than I am."

In a flash, he has her neck in his bound hands as he pushes her against the wall, his anger stirring his dormant magic in a swirl of gold and green hues. "I do not like repeating myself, but you would do well to know to whom you actually speak."

Fear and…understanding dawn in her face. But he only sees pitying compassion and patronising indulgence that underlie those sentiments. Holding her captive for a heartbeat longer, Loki resists the urge to snap the bones in her delicate neck, to punish her for daring to voice the very weakness in him that he loathes.

It would be so easy to crush her and in doing so, crush one of Thor's obsessions.

But where would be the _fun_ in that? After all, he'd always found himself the most entertained in puppetry performances where the strings were tugged, pulled and finally cut when least expected. As reluctant as he is to admit, this particular woman is showing atypical signs of intellect, a trait so alarmingly lacking in Asgard.

The whimper that she tries but fails to stifle interrupts his ruminations.

He grins at the unexpected bite that she shows, then whispers in mock admiration, "You are a…fascinating creature, Miss Foster." Finally, he releases her throat, sending her back into her original position against the wall.

Her eyes cloud over as she fights for consciousness, but not before they send an obstinate message that needs no verbal expression.

_Bastard. Liar. Monster._

He's under no illusions that he is all three.

But where he'd once wanted no part in these shameful labels, Loki knows he actually _excels_ at being thrice flawed. If his only crime is his ability to incite unrest and enmity, to rip apart the harmony of the social order, should he then, not be seen as such? As a shadow to Odin's structured order, a complementary darkness to Thor's light, or as a stubborn speck of stain that will forever mar Asgard's gleaming halls?

She swallows hard and murmurs something incoherent, just as her eyes fall shut.

He tosses her a practised, bored look. "What?"

"I saw them fighting. Thor and Algrim. You disappeared. Then I did too."

She doesn't say any more but at her words, another piece of the puzzle slips into place.

He takes a step towards the fallen mortal, towering over her. But Jane Foster doesn't move an inch. With a glance down at her, he sees that she has fallen unconscious, whether out of pain or out of a need for rest, he doesn't know, nor does he quite care.

Mortals and their frail bodies. Loki snorts aloud, ignores how his own broken one is no better, then backs away a step to think.

Malekith's ambition to conquer the Nine is no secret in Asgard and beyond. But where he was once hindered by lack, he now believes has the power to do so. The manner in which he had not bothered to engage Thor in battle today but sent his underling in his stead suggests that he sees no need to vex himself with a lesser being, laying testament to the theory that his greatly increased power can only be fed by a deeper, more ancient source.

Loki tries to ignore the twinge of unease that wells up in his chest.

He has assumed, thus far, that he had been simply shunted out of the way by a sweep of Malekith's magic into a forgotten part of Svartalfheim because of his apparent inability to even become a worthy adversary of the Accursed one's army. And as long as he is fettered, Malekith is convinced that he poses no threat.

Chuckling, Loki knows that being underestimated _always_ works in his favour.

Jane Foster's own circumstances however, so similar too his own right now, give him pause.

What then, is he to do with her?

He has no time to ponder the answer as the cave begins to slowly fold in on itself, a consequence of an overwrought land further strained by destructive magic. Steadying himself, he closes his eyes as he stretches out his weakened magic to search for ends of the labyrinth, risking the total depletion of his strength. A strange sensation tickles the back of his neck, then the faint image of a yawning hole plunging a short way down to the banks of a river shimmers like a luminescent stamp in his mind.

In the next instant, it disappears.

Trying desperately to recapture the image in his mind, he finds that it slips like sand through his grasp just as the ground brings its own brand of chastisement upon those who so cavalierly wield the darkest of _seiðr_.

The exit is concealed somewhere beyond the pathway across which Jane Foster lies. Sparing another quick glance at the collapsed entrance, he lunges forward and tries to rouse her out of her comatose state with a none-too-gentle shove of his left boot.

"Get up!" He snarls harshly into her face, shaking her once and hard.

Her eyelids flutter open, but they are glazed over in pain. They close again, causing him to bite out a foul curse. His patience finally snapping, he hauls her up roughly with his bound hands and drags her with him as the rocks fall around them.

Somehow, it does not occur to him to leave her where she lay. Later, he will try to convince himself that he has some use for her yet.

For now, there is a matter of greater urgency.

Loki puts a foot in front of another, struggling to find a steady path through the falling debris. He kicks out as hard as he can, then pushes forward as the sharp ends of boulders slice through leather and skin. Straining, he uses what little magic he has to snap the larger ones into powder-

The weight that has been growing steadier heavier on his shoulder suddenly shifts and lifts.

"Oh my god, this-" The loud sound of a large, pointed rock crashing from the top of the cave drowns out the mortal's exclamation.

Rolling his eyes, Loki doesn't even bother to dignify her terrified yelp with a response; instead, he grabs the edge of her cloak near her neck and pulls her onward as the path winds yet again. Her breath is heavy in his ear as she stumbles to keep up with him and Loki pays it no heed, knowing that he is faring no better. Still, he moves doggedly on, never loosening that death grip he has on her, closing the distance as quickly as he can.

If there is anything that he's good at, it is surviving. He survived the fall into the void when he'd all but expected to die, then survived Thanos's nightmarish hold over his mind. What then, is a mere fall into water, even without his magic?

After what seems like an eternity, the cavern opens out into steep drop. He stops just at the edge as the mortal rouses fully only to realise that there's nothing between them and water.

"No way," she breathes in panic. "No way-"

Tiring quickly of her nonsensical chatter, he plunges them both over the edge.

Her horrified shriek accompanies them down.

They fall, cushioned only by the barest lift of a conjured wind and slam into the icy water that swirl over their heads. Loki braces for the impact as much as he can, knowing that the cold wouldn't bother his…physiology, then kicks upwards as he fights burdensome denseness of his armour as the water roars in his ears. Finally, he breaks the surface in a tremendous spray of droplets, shaking his head twice to rid himself of the water in his face and eyes, then looks for the another sign of life.

Jane Foster's head breaches the top just after his does and almost immediately, she chokes and splutters loudly and thrashes about like a drowning bird that cannot take flight.

Content to leave her weaker constitution to deal with its troubles on its own, Loki concentrates on keeping afloat, until a flailing arm nearly hits him in the face. With an infuriated grunt, he raises his arms around her and hooks the curve of his elbow loosely around her neck to tilt it back and upwards as he tightens his fingers on her chin.

"Stay still, or I will let go of you completely."

Feeling somewhat mollified when her body goes slack immediately in obedience, Loki allows the fast-flowing current to do its work once again. By the time the rushing river quietens into a steady stream, he feels less exhausted and not a whit better. He waits for the gentle swell of a wave to lift them upwards, then uses the momentum of its energy to swing his way towards a gently-sloping bank with Jane Foster still in tow.

Panting hard with the effort, Loki drops her unceremoniously onto the pebbled ground and removes his arms off her. After seeing her stumble and fall onto her back on the riverbank, he simply collapses and does the same, staring up at the starless skies.


	6. Chapter 6

There is more than darkness in the beginning. There is also fire, a long forgotten blaze that is stronger than the Odin-force that he aims to unleash.

Midgard trembles as the Svartalfar army marches onto its grounds. Still, Malekith gives the order to destroy, until what is beneath is finally unleashed. A cloud of dust and smoke rises from the north and for a long moment, he mentally traverses the length of the Svartalfar army sent to do battle with this realm and assesses their progress.

He expects some resistance but he also expects to crush them easily. Thus far, they do not prove him wrong.

Amidst the screams and the laughable way these mortals fall, a towering voice suddenly speaks, issued from the heart of this realm.

_There is yet another whom you would do well to consider as an ally. _

The caged power that emanates from these whispered words brings Malekith to his knees.

_Who, master? _He calls out, trembling.

_The greatest sorcerer who yet lives, Loki Laufeyson of Asgard. _

The last order that is issued from the flames is final.

_Find him._

oOo

A few paces away from her, the god of mischief broods over the small fire in yet another cave, although, thankfully, it's slightly below ground level with relatively easy access to the surface.

It is not the hardest thing sharing the same, isolated space with Loki, Jane thinks, as she picks apart an unusually large mushroom and pops it into her mouth. The uneasy truce after the trying time in the river had morphed into a forced dependency between the two of them over the past few – days? – cycles in Svartalfheim and it's as dysfunctional as it can get. There is little spoken between them, as little as there is to do until the injuries heal.

With Loki, it is impossible not to vacillate between pity, hate, fear and uncertainty – and a thousand other emotions in between. It keeps her on her toes around him, even though she knows as well as he does that his restraints give him only slightly better abilities than a mortal man. She spends half the time being worried silly about Thor while the rest of it is spent wondering about the bundle of contradictions that is Loki.

There is enough food for consumption – he has seen to this somehow – yet eyes her like he wants to flay her alive; on the other hand, he allows her to look over his own injuries to the best of her ability under the cover of many cutting insults, then accepts the water that she draws for them both from an underground stream. As unpredictable as his behaviour is, it unsettles her deeply that her mental construction of a one-dimensional villain who razed New York is breaking apart before her very eyes.

They hate each other, yet – dare she say – need each other in a grotesque parody of a relationship that even Odin All-father couldn't possibly have foreseen. It is enough to keep her off-balance and desperate for this game to end. Duplicitous games and double-crossing belong squarely in Loki's domain, not hers and the longer they're here, the more quickly she thinks she might go mad with a volatile spectre that hangs over her.

Momentarily pushing Loki out of her thoughts, Jane turns her attention to Svartalfheim and revisits the questions that have been going through her head as soon as they'd settled in this cave. The environment is the harshest, darkest and the bleakest she's ever seen, a diametric opposite to Asgard that always seems to be bathed in the light of the brightest stars. Were there no poles, no seasons in this realm? Did an orbital plane even exist, well, assuming Svartalfheim was even a planet? And if it wasn't, then-

"Impossible," she breathes softly, already thinking about the number of rules governing astrophysics that needed to be rewritten. The implications are nothing less than _staggering_, from a scientific point of view.

"What?"

She's startled into wary silence for a second, not having expected an answer to her musings. Waving a hand around them in a vague reference to their surroundings, Jane hesitantly offers, "It's always so dark and forbidding here. There's no day or night."

"Oh, but there is."

She looks up to see Loki's calculating gaze on her, made all the more diabolical as the flames flicker on his alabaster skin. But the science behind it is thrilling enough for her to be able to ignore the tendril of unease that sneaks up her spine.

"How? I don't see any change in the daylight hours."

"That doesn't mean that it isn't there, just because your eyes do not see it."

A breath hitches in her throat. Jane has a million questions to ask, though she doubts Loki would appreciate the scientific lingo behind them, not the barrage of ignorant-sounding inquiries that he would clearly deem beneath him to answer.

To her unending surprise, Loki continues, almost with a note of disinterest in his voice. "Much of Svartalfheim has changed since the last time I visited. Heavily-wooded, with green, rolling hills that hide underground caverns."

It's hard to reconcile what she sees with what he's saying about this ruined place. "What happened?"

Her wide-eyed astonishment must have shown on her face as Loki gives her a dark smirk. Turning back to face the dancing flames, he pauses, then says deliberately, "Malekith."

The sombre reality of Svartalfheim's plight crashes down on her. For a brief second, she feels guilty of being more concerned about the science of the realm than in the wake of destruction that Malekith has left.

Would Earth be in this very state when he's done with them? Would there even be a home for her to return to, assuming that she actually comes out alive at the very end?

The memory of the quiet, arid peace of the New Mexican desert floats into her mind and with a sudden pang, Jane wonders if she'll ever see it again. But as tangential as that thought is, the very image of Puente Antiguo brings her musings straight back to Thor; it is, after all, the place where he fell, where she found him, where he finally came to himself.

Had he been a match for Algrim the Strong? Did he fight Malekith as well? Or had he…failed?

Even the thought of it pains her.

Thor had been nothing but wonderful, but that fledgling relationship – if it could even be constituted as a relationship after a few stolen but passionate kisses – seems destined to stay as it is. As much as she _wants_ to love him, _wants_ the uncomplicated fairytale ending that somehow overcomes the towering obstacles that stand in their way, the gulf between them has always been too large to bridge from the very start. And after her short and difficult time in Asgard, she knows that the gap has never been wider, despite the reassuring comfort of his embrace and the gentle warmth of his touch.

It's just easier to yearn for that when she's currently stuck in this particular situation with his volatile, younger brother who could roll off into the deep end at any moment.

The admission doesn't come easy, but Jane has always been a lousy liar, even to herself. Whatever's between them, she'll think as a romantic tragedy in a teacup that she'll never regret. At the very least, however, she can say that she's more than concerned about him.

"What do you think happened to Thor?"

It is only after the words come out that she realises the magnitude of her error.

Loki stiffens, then stands from his crouch near the fire. As though he's contemplating her answer, he pauses deliberately and with malice glittering in his eyes, echoes her question, "What do _you_ think happened to Odinson, Miss Foster?"

"I don't know," she tells him honestly. "But I hope that he's alive."

"I assure you, it will take more than an underling of Malekith's to destroy him," he replies curtly. "More's the pity."

Hope blooms in her chest, then constricts around her heart, her relieved smile faltering as he stalks slowly forward.

"Tell me, Miss Foster," he begins silkily, levelling her with a cool stare, "what is it about Thor Odinson that inspires such devoted loyalty in you? I must say, that even the wenches who once pined for him were never showed such dedication."

If she had learned something in the last few days, it is that Loki always picks his words carefully and purposefully, much like with everything else he does. This is no different from his other stinging barbs, delivered with such skilful panache meant only to denigrate and antagonise.

Jane thinks she's actually learning to get used to it, even as the words tear her insides open just a little. So she shoots him a brittle grin, and gives back as good as she gets.

"You wouldn't understand, no matter how much I try to explain."

"No?" He asks mockingly as he begins to walk in ever-constricting circles around her in the small space of the cave, each round accentuating just a little bit more the difference in their statures.

But when normally this well-known tactic meant to intimidate would have worked, Jane has only barely gotten started, buoyed purely by the conviction that Loki's physical limitation is her advantage.

"No, you wouldn't. Not when you can't see beyond your ass just how much you've really got but think that the whole damn world owes you something and-"

His third circle around her ends abruptly as she finds herself pinned effortlessly to the hard wall by an invisible band that's his so-called diminished magic.

"You know _nothing_!"

"I know jealousy when I see it."

Her heart races as breath escapes her lips just a little quicker. There's something else apart from fear that's making her blood sing as she tussles with him, throwing the plain truth at him, suddenly lost in long-forgotten memories of dismissed academic theories amidst the accolades her own peers have received as she sits forgotten in the New Mexican dust. With these images unwittingly superimposed upon the bitter rage in his emerald eyes, Jane recognises jealousy in every shade of green.

"The last time I held someone's neck in my hands, I threw him out of a building," he muses thoughtfully, ignoring her pointed jab, "and there's much I can do to you. Even without magic."

That line, she thinks, is getting old, even if it leaves her recoiling in fear. "I'm not afraid of you."

He grins with all of his teeth showing. "Liar," he shakes his head as he rakes his eyes deliberately down her form before bringing them up to meet her wide eyes, "Even your body betrays you, Jane Foster."

"So why not do it?" She retorts, shaking even as she speaks, "Rid yourself of whatever damn issues you have with me and just kill me now."

The past few days spent in his sullen company must be making her recklessly bold, never mind that fear is still a silently trickling river beneath that façade of bravado. It is a reminder just how little she knows him, despite the days she's spent in his company, lulled as she had been into a false complacency that he would have flayed her alive already had he wanted to. But this is Loki, dangerous, unstable and entirely capable of turning worlds over, both literally and figuratively, stopped not by choice, but only by a thin pair of metal restraints.

How could she forget?

His incredulous chuckle rings out once more in the cavernous space. "Kill? No, my dear Miss Foster. There is much I can do with you yet. Why then, should I deny myself the pleasure of breaking Thor's mortal if I simply tossed you into the halls of Valhalla?"

A million responses flit through her head. But his grip on her neck and shoulders tightens, turning the words that rise up in her throat into ashes.

What drives this unyielding hate? For all the vitriol that they've exchanged, she doesn't think she actually knows the answer to this question.

Jane hates the naïveté that emerges out of her mouth, but she asks anyway. "Why do you hate him?"

The pressure suddenly lifts. But it is no sooner she finds she can breathe again that he replaces that strangling, invisible hold with the heavy weight of his body that now pushes her harder into the wall.

"Hate him?" Her words are repeated as his eyes lock onto hers, demanding an answer when she had been the one to have asked the question. For an excruciating moment, all she feels is the rise and fall of his breath in his chest tumbling into a strange, synchronous rhythm with her own heavy pants.

Only unthinking bluster makes her meet the barely-contained rage that swirls in his green gaze. In the end, the simplest sentence issues from her lips. "He's your brother."

Loki's unpleasant laugh is a short burst of cool breath on her cheek. "My brother?"

_The brother with whom you've spent an eternity together, with whom you've always had something together._

But it seems unwise to say more. So she simply nods once.

Loki moves away as suddenly as he had pressed her into the wall, a slight, humourless smile on his face. "Oh, how little you understand, Miss Foster. How little you know what called Asgard into being, or how we came to be," he tells her venomously, "and how little you know the true face of Thor Odinson."

His words make no sense. But with no backstory, no history, there's little she can work with and all she has are theories that fall too easily to the ground.

_Make me understand_, Jane wants to say, all too aware that she's treating him like a sample of stardust to analyse, pull apart and force under a microscope.

It hits her then, that she somehow also plays these games without meaning to.

* * *

_A/N: Thank you for reading! There are some issues hinted here that will definitely be revisited later. But I just wanted more Loki x Jane goodness, so there you have it. _


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: I've actually given myself a deadline to finish this story and it only seems natural that I have it done, edited and posted before Thor: The Dark World hits the screens worldwide. Of course, this story is already AU (anything remotely Loki and Jane here is, really) but the thought that there's going to be some inevitable comparison between this story and the film still makes me cringe somewhat. _

_Deadlines for me however, will probably translate as good news to those who're reading. Once again, thanks for your support and reviews. I've a fair bit written so think of this as an early treat/update. As always, my storyline and characters are a mix of the Marvel canon storyline, Norse Mythology and our beloved actors who have brought them all to life._

* * *

The heat sears through skin and muscle, but still, Thor holds on and shuts his eyes as the waves of fire cackle below. There is little there but darkness and never-ending mist, a veneer of emptiness that barely hides the realm of fire, shrouding his inner sight of his beloved weapon.

He strains to look, the effort whiting out the sides of his vision.

Yet, he sees nothing.

With a roar of frustration, Thor tries again, ignoring the dangerous tilt of his own body as he sways and struggles, disoriented by the copious amounts of noxious vapour that coat and blacken his face.

Hidden deep within a dimension, Mjolnir sleeps too soundly.

His energy momentarily spent, Thor exhales noisily and slumps against the hard rock. The small ledge is his only refuge from the temperatures of the raging heat. Even then, aftershocks widen the chasm daily. As each hour passes, the bedrock that holds his considerable weight chips off by the thumb-ell. If Mjolnir does not respond to his call before the ledge breaks off entirely-

It is best not to consider what is yet hypothetical.

Yet on the edge, pushed to the brink, it is his brother's face he sees. Was this how Loki felt as he fell into the void, only to end up in the forgotten branches of Yggdrasil, until Thanos and the Chitauri army found him? What had he endured…even as their family mourned his death too prematurely?

With sweat pouring off his face, Thor takes a deep breath and starts his search anew.

oOo

The dawn breaks over Svartalfheim with the faintest sliver of light over the horizon, then winks out so quickly that unpractised eyes cannot perceive the atmospheric shift. Yet another day has gone by and a holding pattern of sorts has been established, an outcome so outlandish and incalculable that Loki had not foreseen it.

By his estimate, ten cycles have passed since his unfortunate fall from the ravine into the river. It is also the longest period that he has spent in another's company and with one who isn't an Aesir. He is however, quick to tell himself that the mortal still lives and breathes only because he will not be beholden to someone of such inferior a stature when it had been her dagger that had averted a grievous injury.

With a slight flick of his wrist, her elegant blade appears in his hand. Carved out of the finest Asgardian metal, it is a weapon fashioned for a lady's hand, though he cannot possibly imagine how it has landed in Jane Foster's possession.

Immediately, Loki knows that it is a gift as well as an unspoken challenge, for the mortal to rise beyond her bodily limitations to prove her worth before she is granted a place among the Aesir.

Yet it seems as though Jane Foster has no qualms about failing. Perhaps she is resigned to it? Not once has she spoken about wanting a part of Asgard as Thor's consort; neither has she spoken of the immortality and powers that await her should she pass Odin's and Frigga's tests. Instead, her random babbles that come at the oddest times of the day are piece-meal offerings of her life out in the desert wastelands of Midgard and a snippet or two about the days she spent as a scholar in the libraries immersed in books.

Often, he pretends not to hear what she says. But Jane Foster talks on anyway, whether as a means of filling the silence or combating her own loneliness.

And it leaves him more than a little intrigued.

For once in his entire life, he thinks he has attained a measure of understanding of…mortal weakness, as much as it pains him to admit that. But he is far from accepting it in his own body. Subject to an equivalent measure of fatigue, hunger and dulled senses as Jane Foster probably is, Loki finds such an existence too cumbersome for his liking.

And Thor finds an affinity with that damnable realm because…?

Shaking his head, Loki puts Thor out of his mind, uncaring of the outcome of the idiot's skirmish with Algrim. There is bigger game to hunt and as far as he is concerned, he will do this on his own terms. Not at the behest of Odin and most certainly not because Thor's precious Midgard has been razed by Malekith's ambitions of conquest. A part of the reason he'd like to think, is for Asgard, a place for which he feels so deeply, yet isn't accepted in.

And for the rest of it, whoever said that _everything_ needed to be quantified and justified?

Although it has taken far too long, his wounds have healed and he is ready to move on, eager to explore the ways in which the Svartalfar travel between realms without the equivalent of a Bifrost.

The sudden sound of rustling behind him doesn't make him snap around in surprise as he used to.

Jane Foster rises from her slumber as shaky as a newborn foal and as ill-tempered as a bilgesnipe. Her daily ablutions and routines are patterned in such a way that allows him to read her like an open book.

Stepping over to her as she washes her face in a shallow pool of water, he takes the opportunity to catch her unawares.

"We will move on today," he announces without warning.

Predictably, she jumps at the sound of his voice. Then she whips around and glares at him, the angry stare turning up a notch when he simply raises a questioning brow in mock-innocence. Only when she emerges from her little pool does he hold out the dagger towards her, moving under her nose such that it enters her field of vision. But she is staring at it like an entirely foreign object, making no move to take it.

Impatiently, he pushes it forward until its hilt nearly touches her nose. "You are now fully healed, are you not? You can now defend yourself with this dagger."

"You can keep it," she tells him dully.

Loki rolls his eyes and sighs, "Consider us even, Miss Foster. You have thrown me the dagger to defend myself against the Svartalfar and I have used it to provide all the sustenance that you need. You should reclaim it as yours."

She snorts and moves past him to the small, communal vat of food that she has carefully watched over for the past few days. "Lots of good it does when the only thing I can do with a knife is to slice vegetables and chicken to throw into the cooking pot."

His brows nearly hit his hairline. "This blade is forged by the sweat and blood of Frigga's own smiths, handpicked by Fjörgynn himself. It is a treasure to behold in all the realms and their wielders carry them with great pride."

He is unprepared for the cynical chuckle that he hears. "Exactly."

"You would reject a gift from Frigga herself?"

Finally, she raises her eyes to meet his, and cautiously takes the dagger from his outstretched hand. Turning it around to examine the finely carved runes on its hilt, she tells him with a small grimace, "I'm no warrior. Everyone knows that. I don't need any more reminders of that fact. So maybe it's better it stays in the hands of someone who actually knows how to use it."

He remains silent, contemplating that statement and she takes it as an invitation to go on.

"My presence on Asgard hasn't been a vacation, despite what you probably think," she sighs. "I was supposed to 'prove my worth' to Odin and Frigga if that's what you can even call it, with the help of this little dagger. And whether it's magic or not, trust me when I say I failed all the tests spectacularly."

Now that _is_ an interesting revelation, another knot to frustrate the Norn's perfect weave of destiny's fabric. Loki wonders how Thor must have dealt with this particular trip in his step.

"There is little mortals can do without failing," he says patronisingly.

She glares at him again, but there is little heat behind that look as she motions to his bound hands. "Yeah, you should know, right?"

Loki stamps down the flare of anger at her goading, recognising all too well that the wounded set baits as much as they take them. "So you accept your failure."

"Let's just say I'm no stranger to it."

He gives her a long, hard look. "And what of your pledge of loyalty to Thor?"

"Pledge?" She repeats the word incredulously. "I think you're not getting the full story here. I'd all but given up seeing Thor again. Then he appears out of the sky one day, long after the Avengers are gone, just as Earth's getting destroyed, then he whisks me off to Asgard. Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered that he thought of me, and Asgard's such a great place, but the next thing I knew, I've been turned into a bird, asked to fly, and next I was facing some large beast out of mythology with that dagger. It was about ready to eat me and all I could do was scream. The All-father is convinced that these tasks have shown me up and frankly, I agree with him."

"So the taste of failure is bitter," he comments sardonically.

She makes no response to that and merely straightens her shoulders a bit more at his prodding.

He will not deny that the mortal's embittered stance surprises him and with it comes unbridled satisfaction in hearing that that oaf of his once-brother has yet gotten it wrong again. It is expected that the paths for a mortal in an immortal realm would not be without trials, but these would already be sufficiently trying in a realm that prizes valour and every outward show of physical strength.

Everything else that falls outside these clearly defined expectations is simply called…weak.

The memory of his hands turning icy-blue springs unbidden into his memory. _Laufey's son…small for a giant's offspring…abandoned, suffering, left to die…the monster parents tell their children about at night…_

With a grimace, Loki banishes the memory into a place where forbidden emotions reside. At present, it isn't too hard with the dulling effect of his bindings; it is in fact, easier than what he's ever had in centuries.

A traitorous part of him wishes it'd stay that way for a while longer.

A deprecating sigh from Jane Foster breaks the silence and he watches as she clumsily twirls the blade once. "As I said, you'd probably do better with it than I ever will."

With a shrug, he takes the dagger out of her hand and vanishes it back into the seamless dimension that forms part of the air that surrounds him.

"Well then. I thank you for the precious blade. Goodbye, Miss Foster," he tells her with some finality.

"What? That's it? After all that I've said? And you're leaving me here?" Disbelief colours her voice and Loki smirks inwardly at her rising pitch.

"Why shouldn't I?" He replies nonchalantly as she sputters in indignation.

Her mouth hangs open rather comically and he enjoys the look of shock for as long as it lasts. "I thought that I…we-"

"I don't know why you assume that there's any charity on my part simply because I-"

"I'll just follow you, you know? I'll walk where you walk, because I know you want to get out of here as much as I do," she interrupts him quietly. "And without your magic, I might just be able to keep up."

Her audacity makes him clench his fists just as her tenacity goes a way to impress him. With this mix of foolish bravado and misplaced determination rolled into one, he sees why Odin had set such lofty targets for her to meet before granting her an Aesir's body and powers. Sighing loudly, Loki simply turns his back to her and begins walking, but not before he hears her own sigh of relief as she follows.


	8. Chapter 8

The fine balance that he has found in the long hours searching for the hammer is about to be tipped. Sparing a glance downwards, Thor knows that next crack will send him straight down into the molten lake of fire.

The tapestry of red heat disappears behind his lids as he calls out once again for Mjolnir, searching for well-hidden pinpricks of the light of Uru under Yggdrasil's luscious canopy. They lie like precious gems hidden in darkness, yet there is none so polished or as worn as Mjolnir that he senses in his search.

With a whispered chant, he retraces a path through the chromatic maze of colours that surround the mid-layer of Yggdrasil's branches, sifting through the gradation of iridescence as quickly as he dares. Strangely enough, it is this pathway that resonates the most strongly within him and for that reason, he returns time and again to scour its treasures.

Instinct, once again, tells him to peer closer. So he obeys it without second thought. In this sixth round of treasure hunting, Thor finally narrows down his search to this small quadrant of this dimension, feeling the Uru's answering call vibrate like it never had before.

This time, he hears Mjolnir say his name.

Joy pricks every surface of his skin, washing out the stain of the molten lake's vapour as he rushes to reclaim his hammer with a single command in the Asgardian tongue and asks it to _come_.

In the same instant the dimension that holds Mjolnir tears open, the ledge on which he stands succumbs to his weight.

And then he is falling, hurtling through the vapour, his hands outstretched and scrabbling once again for purchase. A dark speck that suddenly appears in the air, however, is faster than the velocity of his tumble, arcing through the oppressive heat to attach itself to his palm a few thumb-ells before his booted feet actually hit the spitting waves of fire.

With Mjolnir raised high in his hand, Thor bursts out of the chasm in a roar of light and sound, searching for a portal that will bring him back to Asgard.

oOo

Jane stumbles on a root, bites back a curse and takes three quick steps as recompense just to keep up with Loki's longer, sure-footed strides.

There is little on Svartalfheim's ground level that looks different from its caves, save for the barely-visible mountain range that is perpetually in sight despite the turns they've made. It's like a camping trip gone wrong, she thinks with more than a touch of unease as she takes a glance at the unchanging landscape that they've trudged through for the past couple of hours, making it seem as though they're walking in circles.

But Loki would know his way, wouldn't he? Or had that been a pure moment of lunacy of hers to have thrown her dice in with his?

Before Jane can work herself up into a frenzy of doubt, Loki stops without warning and she runs into his back before she can help herself.

"Wh-"

Sparing her a baleful look, he scans the dark horizon, stilling to listen. In a flash, he takes a sharp left into yet another winding path, quickening his steps until she's nearly panting with exertion just to keep up. He darts into a glade more nimbly than she ever can, emerging out of it before sliding gracefully down an incline in a wash of mud that dirties her more than it does him. Finally, he comes to a stop under a thick copse of trees situated just as the edge of an incline.

Jane bends over just trying to catch her breath as she laments her fitness levels, marvelling that the Asgardian cloak that she wears barely shows a trace of dirt even though she feels like she's just been put through the mill. Only when she straightens does she see the pinched look on Loki's face and the set of his shoulders that's too straight for her liking, almost as though-

The distant snap of a twig makes her jump.

Loki pauses and narrows his eyes at the noise as he continues to stare hard into the dark pockets of the grove that they've found themselves in.

Jane's only too sure that he's got another scathing comment ready. But what he says next makes her almost prefer the half-hearted insults he throws at her.

"We are being hunted."

His calm words raise the hair on her neck, spiking a flare of panic. "By…whom…or what? I don't…can't even see them!"

A bland smirk tilts the corners of his lips as Loki cants his head leftwards as though searching for the slightest change in the dense air.

"The Svartalfar are more at home in the darkness than you will ever be. A party of dark elves has found our trail. And with them are the sons of Geri, Odin's ravenous wolf, scattered in these realms so that they can feed off the corpses of those fallen in battle. The best I can do is throw them off our scent, but this merely delays the inevitable."

Jane reels with the revelation, wondering just how he managed to figure that part out when all she can see is…nothing. There's an unnatural stillness in the air, but that hasn't changed since they left the cave, an odd tingling of something she can't name, compounded with the spectre of dread that refuses to go away. But then, she's lived through the sacking of Asgard, through the carnage of the attack as they arrived in Svartalfheim – it's more than all the bloodshed that she'd ever need for a lifetime. Why then, does this surprise her still?

His eyes are bright, verdant green and very hard as he tells her coolly, "The enemies of Asgard are tenacious and as long-lived as they come. You thought that Malekith would simply discard us?"

"No, I-" Jane begins, then stops when the air itself seems to _shift_, as if the thin bubble in which she's found herself has just been popped with the smallest pinprick of light. In the next second, she hears them – soft, low growls that seem to surround their tiny, temporary refuge.

Loki looks less worried than she's feeling. Yet something passes across his face that suspiciously resembles uncertainty.

"The glade merely amplifies their cries."

If that's his attempt at reassurance, then Jane thinks it's a piss-poor one that doesn't help a bit in soothing her frayed nerves. She spares the treetops another look, then jerks her eyes around the way he's doing, but still, she barely sees anything beyond the elegant seams of Loki's heavy armour. Jane knows that she's shuffling nervously, barely holding it altogether by the thinnest of threads, and wishes she just knows how to behave otherwise.

All of a sudden, she feels his vice-like grip on her upper arm, the shock of the movement tripling her heartbeat.

"Run."

The command is hissed into her ear as the darkness splits and gives way to snapping jaws and loud battle cries.


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: I'm hoping this will make up for the last short chapter which got me some protests. Apparently illness can be quite productive when scenes are fuelled by fever-induced deliriums. Thanks for reading and believe or not, we're more than halfway done. _

* * *

Even with the bindings, a different sensation crawls up Loki's skin, a tingling warning of an imminent offensive, hidden in a mix of shadows and fog that he can't quite yet untangle.

Nonetheless, the surface of Svartalfheim is imbued with Malekith's magic. The wave of _seiðr_ bends and undulates around him like the seductive caress of cold fingers and if he feels it strongly even with his dulled senses, then it could only mean that its actual strength is likely a thousand-fold. With a frown, he takes another sniff of the air, sifting through his memories of the lores that lie forgotten in the library of Asgard. Again, that tinted scent of fire dust is unmistakable and its signature reeks of Midgardian odours and…Muspelheim's pungent rocks.

Clarity comes swiftly as he finally recognises the driving force behind Malekith's power. When this foul time on this forsaken realm is over, he knows that he has some work to do. On Midgard.

But now, as the darkness closes in, there are other things to take care of. Yet there's nowhere to run.

Loki finds himself in a tangle of bloodthirsty jowls and sharp teeth just before he forces them both into a hard tumble down the rest of the incline. The additional weight of the attacking wolves slams them painfully into the hard ground as he rolls and finds himself halfway atop Jane Foster's slight frame.

In the next second, he's springing himself off her and pushing back up onto his feet, the dagger withdrawn and already cutting through the corded neck of a creature that has its teeth embedded into his leg. The fountain of blood stains his face and showers the soil a dark red but he pays it no heed. Instead, he whirls around and brings the blade sharply down through the head of another one that has clawed its way up his back.

To his left, the sounds of a similar struggle reach his ears.

Smaller and unarmed, Jane Foster kicks out hard at the hound that has jumped on her, but even then, the creature is large and its strength far surpasses hers. She twists and flinches in the wet soil, doing all she can to avoid its gaping jaws.

He sees it a split second before she does – a small indentation in the ground that will, in the next second, unseat her balance enough to position the creature's teeth exactly where bone and cords of muscle will break apart easily.

Already, Loki knows that the mortal will lose this fight. Ironically, he truly understands and even appreciates that weakness, as though those selfsame traits run through his own veins. No matter how aversive he finds it, he knows he has partaken more than his better share of it and has been as helpless as the Jotunn runt he really is long enough to be sick and tired of the number of things he _can't_ do.

He leaps after her, hauling the creature off her torso and with a quick snap of his bound hands, twists the hound's head upwards and sharply to the right until a satisfying crack echoes through the grove. Straightening as he lets go of the dead animal, he finally turns to her, feeling as worn-out as she looks.

For a heartbeat, she meets his eyes unflinchingly, holding his own captive as she climbs steadily to her feet. Without intending to, Loki takes a small step forward towards her, not really knowing what he-

She falters and the muted murmur that drifts, ghostlike, at the back of his neck grows into a steady hum that makes everything in him clench in anticipation.

There is something off-kilter, something very wrong.

"Loki!"

He spins at her warning shout as masked figures robed in black and white materialise out of a hidden dimension, taller, larger and more indefatigable than the ones that had ambushed their travelling party.

They are Malekith's own guards are bearing down on them, heralding the imminent arrival of their master.

Summoning the reserves of his strength, Loki throws himself straight into the fight. Wielding Frigga's dagger against Malekith's magic that has grown to suffocating proportions, he takes both its strength and his own to breaking point. The blade _sings_ in battle, but as much as he appreciates its worth, he is outnumbered, merely countering and parrying the swiftness of the Svartalfar to the best of his ability. Still, he keeps on moving, even as his limbs grow heavier and less mobile than he'd liked as he uses the dagger to scythe through them.

But he knows he's tiring too easily, his focus no longer sharp and centred as it bends to the dark magic of the elves. And he fears that it's only a matter of time before he makes a fatal mistake.

That fear becomes reality in the next moment.

From the corner of his eye, he sees Jane stumbling to her feet, eyes wide as she prepares to-.

Realisation dawns quickly and it hits his gut with the same force that Mjolnir would have made had it swung straight into his belly.

_No, no, no…_

A sharp, stinging pain blooms from his side as she slams into him, taking part of the brunt from a dark elf's blade. It takes him a split-second to centre himself just as he frantically scrambles see if breath has completely left her body.

_Stupid, wretched mortal! How dare she! How dare she presume to think that her frail body will do any good? Who in Hel does she think-_

The remnants of magic in his body seethes instinctively in response to the myriad of inexplicable emotions that floods his mind, pushing their way to his fingertips until they shimmer gold and green.

A choking groan reassures him that she lives as her bloodied hand cradles her bleeding ribs.

Blinding rage makes Loki push insistently at the wall of magic that the Uru in his bindings has created, harder than he's ever tried before, going past the initial jarring pain that rattles his bones, past the blood that starts to pour from the side of his mouth… finally tearing a hole in the wall that restrains his magic that bubbles and froths impatiently from behind it.

Closing his eyes, he kicks, pushes and hits out at that tiny gap which promises so much. He tries again, driven only by single-minded purpose, unheeding of the ridges that appear of their own accord across pale skin that takes on a blue hue and eyes that start to bleed crimson.

Jane's horrified gasp is a distant sound in his ears as the barrier gives with no warning.

It produces a small, insignificant hum that is lost within the booming noise of the skirmish as his bindings creak and disintegrate into fine, silver dust that dissipates before it can touch the bloodied soil of Svartalfheim. Then it seems as though the sum total of all the nine realms rushes into his head in the space of a heartbeat as the fog lifts, leaving clarity so alarming that he clutches his head until the white rush fades into tingling filaments of _life_. There's life again his head, in his blood, as the magic gurgles freely and cleaves itself anew to him.

Without hesitating, Loki reaches for their threads…and tugs.

An energy storm ravages the ground, tossing every last standing elf into a large wide crater that he opens before him. Blinding green light rips immediately through the damaged copse of trees, followed by the sibilance of a thousand snakes that slither from the ground like new shoots in an Asgardian spring. They find their way to the Svartalfar, surrounding them, gliding onto them, then melting into a viscous molten silvery grey liquid, muffling even their screams of agony.

Bereft of patience, Loki considers an immediate confrontation with Malekith as he wrestles with the bloodlust that courses through his veins. His magic yearns to be unleashed after being deprived of free reign for so long and he's more than tempted to give into its demands. But that _foolish_, _rash_, _idiotic_ mortal is injured because of him – thanks to her stupid antics – and once again, he finds himself unwillingly beholden to this stupid woman who insists on getting between him and his enemies.

As reason reasserts itself, he knows particular battle will need to wait for another day.

The decision made, he scoops her up and rips open a pathway out of Svartalfheim.

oOo

They materialise in a pasture cloaked in the soft, pastel shades of greens and yellows, but Jane is only more distantly aware of its ethereal beauty than she is aware of the hard armour that's pressed into her burning flesh. A shadow crosses her eyes as she feels soft grass beneath her back and it is then that she realises there's a strange kind of warmth coming from her side.

Kneeling next to her is Loki, an inscrutable look on his face as he pours out steady streams of gold and green light from unsteady hands onto her ribcage. Jane doesn't know what he's really doing, but it feels remarkable, as though there is a patchwork of invisible stitching that seamlessly knits skin and bone back together again.

Curiosity gets the better of her as she strains upward to look-

"Don't." His curt command puts paid to that. "Your mortal frailty can't handle anymore than the strain that you've put yourself under."

When he's done, he pushes to his feet and places some distance between them.

Lying back down again, Jane runs a mental check on her own body, leaving him to do…whatever he does. She places an experimental hand where the injury is, marvelling at the pink, healed skin and the curious coolness that seems to linger over it.

Loki is thorough, as usual.

Resisting the exhaustion that threatens to sink her into oblivion, she is left alone to ponder the events that have led up to this moment. There's too much she has seen and too little time to process it all. As a consequence, she feels like she has been scraped raw, flattened and chewed out within the space of what feels only like an hour.

The unfamiliar constellations are mesmerising from where she lies, so she makes no move to get up. They make her think of the time she stared up at Earth's night sky and the sudden pang of homesickness makes her swallow hard. It's in such moments like these where she wishes she hadn't chased after a particular anomaly in the sky and found a broken man who fell from the stars in the heavens.

But this would have meant the spending the best part of her life single-mindedly chasing after a mad dream destined to stay an illusion.

Right now, she's not sure which is the better option.

"Your wounds may be healed, but your body is extremely fatigued. Stay as you are and it will pass soon enough." His voice carries over the slight, cool breeze over to her.

For someone who isn't human, he seems to have a fairly developed understanding of human physiology. But then, hadn't he just spent a prolonged period of time becoming _almost_ human? Jane lifts her head minutely in interest, intending to throw that back as a jibe, stopped only by the arresting sight of him in his full armour, the horned helmet making a _hell_ of a silhouette against the stars. It's the very picture of the half-crazed god that she remembers as he raced madly around New York with his Chitauri army, leaving her more than a little uncomfortable. But it has been some time since then and Jane isn't sure whether _rehabilitation_ has actually changed Loki, if there's even such a term for it.

In the end, she decides to stick with a safe subject matter. "Where are we, anyway?"

"Does that matter?"

She gives that question a bit of thought and decides that it doesn't. But it's in her nature to ask and then spend her whole lifetime searching for answers that may not even exist. She shrugs, "Just curious."

Loki pauses, following her enthralled gaze at the swirling firmament of soft colours. "We're on a long-forgotten pathway of Yggdrasil."

She casts a look of wonder around again, too fascinated by what she sees to pay any attention to his indifference. "It's beautiful and-."

"And impermanent," he interrupts. "We don't have much time here before this pathway ceases to exist."

Somehow, that thought that its beauty is ephemeral fills her with sadness. "Where're we heading to next?"

Loki crosses to her side and peers down critically at her. "It depends."

Her brow furrows. "On?"

"On your body's capability to withstand the stress and pressure of traversing these pathways, which is doubtlessly little."

"Now that you can speak from experience," she says and smirks cynically, but his face remains a passive mask.

"So it would seem to you wouldn't it?"

Jane bites her lip as she weighs her next response. The bland nonchalance that he projects is making it all the more harder for her to say what she needs to say. She forces herself to continue, despite her obvious hesitation.

"Thank you," she tells him finally. "For…this, for saving me."

He stills at her words and it's a long moment before he answers with what sounds like forced politeness. "I am beholden to no one."

The Loki that she thought she knew wouldn't have batted a lid at owing a mortal – or anyone – a debt.

What had changed?

There's also something else that has been bugging her and once again, Jane ponders the wisdom of asking the very question that has been at the heart of this fragile, non-relationship. Inhaling deeply, she does anyway, figuring that she's take her chances with him more that she would with any dark elf.

"How…why did it happen?"

A slight grimace crosses Loki's angular face and from the sudden tenseness in his stance, she knows he'd understood perfectly what she's just asked.

"It was the most opportune moment, wouldn't you agree?"

Jane frowns at the deliberate vagueness that he throws back at her, knowing exactly what she saw despite the burning, blinding pain that had temporarily greyed out the edges of her vision. The raised, blue ridges that appeared on his pale, blue skin and the way in which his eyes had turned red for a split second just as the restraints had broken. She takes in his frame and his slicked back hair and it's as though the last ten days and the ground that they've covered have been utterly erased. That the _Loki_ she thinks she knows…is more out of reach than he has ever been.

The snippet of the conversation that she'd overheard between Thor and Loki surfaces in her mind at his flippant response.

_Father had already said that it is not yet time. _

_You take Odin's words as complete truth? He, who has seen fit to disguise what you now know as my true heritage?_

Studying the science of the stars for years has made her prone to reasoned speculation and this puzzle is no different. As she usually does, Jane runs with the little that she has. Unashamedly, her gaze follows him as he moves away yet again to perch lightly on a large rock that faces the sky, already lost in weighing the variables that had constituted all that she's seen and experienced.

What if…she's actually _seen_ Loki's 'true heritage'? The little that she saw when his bonds fell loose makes her wonder if there is in truth, an inaccessible part of Loki that the Odin-force cannot touch or reach.

Had that particular brand of magic been responsible for freeing him?

Or was it something else entirely? Had it taken something more intangible, yet simple enough that Loki, for his aversion to Midgard and their multitude of flaws, hadn't truly experienced until then? That he, being subjected to the same weaknesses that he despised as his magic was restrained, had finally understood a smidgen of the concept of sacrifice that's found in abundance in humanity's banal, daily living? That through this period of weakness, Odin had forced Loki to look into – and live though – a race he deems so prone to indulgent sentiments and ridiculous vicissitudes so that he could experience for himself what he'd always refused to see for millennia?

Or maybe, Jane thinks ruefully, that's more fanciful delusion than reality.

Forced to depend on the very race of beings he believes should be subjugated and ruled over, it's a lesson that's unlikely to go down well, especially if it is transmitted as an exercise in humiliation.

Even if the answer lies somewhere far from her hypotheses, she's just not ready to give this up yet. "But I thought I saw-"

"Your eyes can deceive you in battle."

There's more that she wants to know. "What did you do to the dark elves?"

The look that he gives her is both wicked and sly, a timely reminder of the predator he's always been. "The dark elves show a weakness to an extremely large amount of iron, an element that is most common in Midgard but rare in all the Nine."

"So, revenge is a dish best served cold…as iron," she muses with more than a hint of awe then rushes to explain as confusion briefly appears on his face. "It's just…a saying we have, uh, which I twisted. Somehow it doesn't sound all that funny after I've said it. Sorry, it's just a bad, geek joke. Anyway," she swallows uncomfortably after that awkward ramble and immediately tries to change the subject. "You, uh, conjured iron out of…whatever was around us?"

Impatience slides into his voice as he acknowledges her question. "It's a core lesson in alchemy, yes."

"So, after all that fighting and magic, all we needed to do was pour iron on Malekith to save Earth and all the other realms?" Jane asks in disbelief. That he alone, could have stopped this, had he been released from prison earlier?

A malevolent smirk crosses his face at her naïveté. "I'm afraid, Jane, that Malekith's ambition is bolstered by another being whose powers likely conceived iron into existence. How do you think his forces could have laid waste to Asgard otherwise?"

A chill cuts down her spine at the thought of another force of evil that surpasses Malekith's penchant for conquest and destruction. "But who-"

The sudden, cold sweep of air that moves down her arms makes her jerk upwards again in surprise, cutting off her words. From the way Loki snaps his head up, she knows that he feels it too.

"We must go."

"So, this pathway is closing?" She hazards a guess and struggles to sit up.

"This branch of Yggdrasil – or a twig holding a leaf you might say – is dying."

Jane tries, flails and manages to stand wobbly to her feet. It's not hard to feel proud of that little accomplishment when there has only been too much failure in its wake.

"Let's go. I think I'll make it somehow."

"No," he tells her flatly, "you wouldn't."

She flounders again, proving his point.

But where she'd expected more unsavoury mocking from him, a strong arm simply spins her about and curls around her waist before she can counter that argument. Startled and wide-eyed by the sudden movement, Jane steadies herself by throwing up a hand up against that armoured chest. Belatedly realising what she'd done, she jerks her eyes upwards the unforgiving planes of his handsome face.

Those impossible, green eyes glimmer with an intensity that takes her breath away – in spite of the insult he'd just paid her. And then it is gone, replaced by a hard, familiar loathing with which she's all too well acquainted.

Tilting his head downwards until there is barely any space between their faces, he murmurs harshly, "No, I don't imagine you will, Miss Foster."

Her stammering answer is swallowed up by the pixelated, fractured hues of a New Mexican twilight as Loki's magic whisks open another pathway and flings them into pure space.


	10. Chapter 10

The flattened copse of trees and the broken bodies of his soldiers bear witness to the short battle that had taken place and it is all that greets Malekith when he arrives. The trail of destruction speaks of a sorcerer's magic that had _rushed_ back to its master and in doing so, cut a clumsy path that otherwise would not be there.

Perhaps he has truly underestimated the depths of Loki Laufeyson's sorcery and skills. If the Trickster had been restrained in the initial fight with the first son of Odin and his consort, the fey, recognisable residue is rude testament to the fact that he is neither bound nor _useless_ any longer.

In his near-sightedness, he had failed to see what his master had always seen and intended.

From across the realms, Malekith takes his master's call and summons the son of Laufey.

oOo

In the fading light of the day, the feasting hall is empty where it should have been filled with the raucous laughter of Asgardians who impatiently await their evening meal.

Never has Thor seen a sadder sight.

Sighing softly, he pulls himself into one of the chairs and sinks down, taking comfort in its hardness and the sheer familiarity of its position in the hall. As the light of the stars grow more brilliant, he gets lost in the fond memories that assail him of this place, of the times when the overflowing mead had brought about behaviour from him and the Warriors Three that was best kept from his mother's ears…or of the time when Loki had-

A sudden, sharp pang forms in his chest at his brother's name. Thor thinks back to the time when he thought Loki fell into the void and how far into the depths of despair he'd fallen.

And then he wishes, not for the first time, that he knew a way to fix all that had been wrong between them from the very start. Wishes that he'd been less oblivious to his younger brother's perceived failings when as he'd excelled so naturally in sorcery than in the training of a warrior, or that he'd not felt as put out as he'd been as boys when Loki hadn't shown an affinity for the sword as he did.

But there's so much he admires in his brother: Loki's formidable will, the utter brilliance that he shows, the wit and the intellect that he can never hope to match, the deadly grace that never seems to leave him in battle as he despatches their enemies with ruthless efficiency-

All he wants is for Loki to be by his side again as much as he knows how treacherous his adopted brother is.

If there's a regret that Thor will never stop having, it's that he'd shouted his disdain for all Frost Giants and for his quickness to war with Jotunheim when these careless words had cost him more than a banishment to Midgard. Instead, the horror he'd felt when Odin had finally revealed the truth of Loki's Jotun birth hadn't compared to the great loss he knew when Loki had fallen into the void and into the hands of Thanos.

Even though stung by Loki's many betrayals, he'd never stopped nursing the flickering hope that he would one day, see the brother that he thought he'd known again. With that hope dashed away after Loki's attack on Midgard, he was convinced that he would have slain the Silvertongue himself if he'd shown the slightest trace of duplicity in Svartalfheim. Yet all it had taken was Jane and Loki's disappearance to cause him to rethink his actions.

Thor realises now that he is truly unwilling to mourn his brother for a second time. For that, he has to believe that Loki's devious resourcefulness – and his penchant for duplicity – will serve him well.

The cruel irony of it all leaves a bitter aftertaste in his throat.

The sound of a chair being gently moved from his right pulls Thor from his morose thoughts. It has been millennia since Heimdall has moved from his position at the Observatory as keeper of the Bifrost and his unlikely presence in the hall makes Thor blink in surprise. It's only then that he notices the deep weariness and the lines have all but wiped the usual placid serenity from the guardian's face. Even the golden sheen of Heimdall's armour and his fierce, golden eyes seem more muted, more sombre as parts of Asgard lie in ruins.

Is the lone being who sits next to him the one whom he knows to be indestructible and all-seeing, second only to the All-father?

"Tell me, what do your eyes see, Heimdall?" He asks more out of habit and ritual than necessity. There seems to be little that has changed in the time that he had been away.

A small, humourless smile temporarily erases the sternness of the keeper's face as he fingers the hilt of his sword lightly.

"I see a prince who returns from Svartalfheim more lost than when he left."

Thor acknowledges the wry answer with a chuckle. The journey back to Asgard had been long and arduous and only Mjolnir's tracking ability had pointed out the complex labyrinth of roads that the Svartalfar use to join their realm to others. He'd returned to Asgard with little of his strength left and needing a solitary moment of peace and quiet, had simply not sought out the queen or his closest friends.

What was he to say when he saw them? That he'd failed in this mission, or that he'd failed Jane and Loki…once again?

"Malekith has Jane and Loki. And I couldn't find them. I tried and I failed," Thor finds himself saying to Heimdall, unwilling to keep the burden to himself any longer. "I've failed in my role, as guardian, as protector, as someone who should have known better!"

"There is much bitterness in you, young prince," Heimdall observes. "Yet-"

"There is much bitterness in failure," he counters sharply.

"Hear me out, son of Odin," the guardian continues, unheeding of the impatience he hears in Thor's voice. "I had foreseen the armies of Malekith in the distance as they marched for Asgard. It was I who held off the first wave of attack from the Bifrost. Yet I cannot see where your brother and his mortal companion are."

Thor snaps his head up, seeking those unworldly eyes. The keeper's words are both a balm to his parched self and a teasing appetiser that leaves him wanting more.

"But you know that they live still?" He asks urgently, feeling his heartbeat double at the unexpected revelation.

There is a deliberate pause before Heimdall answers. "The Odin-force binds many living beings in a tapestry that is forever unfinished. Yet I have not felt the threads that hold the lives of your brother and the mortal break."

Relief, heavy and weighty, sweeps through him like one of the thundering winds that Mjolnir creates.

"That's good to know. I can only hope that Jane is-" He breaks off and purses his lips until they become a thin line, hugely vexed at the thought that she might find herself harmed by Loki's hand. As much as his adopted brother had been raised with the manners befitting a prince of Asgard, Thor knows Loki well enough not to expect anything good to come out of that meeting.

Had his insistence on Jane making the journey to Svartalfheim inadvertently doomed her when all he'd intended was to keep her safe by his side? As much as Thor knows that Jane Foster's place is not with the Aesir or with him for that matter, her welfare is another guilty burden that he will carry until he sees her safe and sound once again.

A heavy but insistent hand falls on his shoulder and Thor looks up to see the flare of fire in the guardian's golden orbs.

"There are bigger things that we must contend with, son of Odin. We face an enemy known only to a few...known only to one, until now."

Thor lifts his head in interest. "You speak about an ancient foe."

"Even the second prince's ambition cannot match his power. The armies of Malekith march in his name."

Heimdall's words bring back the memory of his recent ordeal with Algrim in the molten lake and he grimaces, unwilling to dwell on the heat of the flames-

Thor sits up in shock, remembering Malekith's increased strength and his unforeseen affinity with fire. As the second go by, these realisations coalesce into a single surety. There had been myths and rumours – no, stories, really – that had circulated in Asgard since time immemorial of the days when Ginnungagap separated Niflheim and Muspelheim…of a great evil that had submitted to Odin's power in a great battle that had finally brought peace to the Realm Eternal.

He wishes now, that he'd paid closer attention to these tales.

If a more terrifying spectre than Malekith has finally raised its head, then it could only be-

"Surtur of Muspelheim. You speak about Surtur." His deduction earns him a grim nod.

"His name has not been spoken for ages past."

Odin still sleeps as destruction rages about them. His father knows many things and it's his power alone that might be sufficient to combat this ancient evil that still remains caged. How much time did they have on their side before Surtur was unleashed upon them? Could they form an alliance with the leaders of the Nine perhaps, if they haven't already been conquered and subdued? Was it too late or were they on their own?

"Stories speak of Father's battle with Surtur and his subsequent imprisonment in the heart of Midgard. Until now, I was never sure if they were merely tall tales spun to entertain bored Aesir," Thor muses. "What can we do, Heimdall?"

Heimdall says nothing, but the troubled look on his face is telling.

"What will it take?" Thor presses more urgently, desperate for answers.

"I cannot tell you what you want to hear, son of Odin. I will only trust you to do what is best for us. There is however, one thing I know: the solution that we seek will cost us much, perhaps even too much."

* * *

_A/N: Not to worry, Loki and Jane (for the shippers who read this) will return in the next chapter and it wouldn't be too long a wait, I promise. Thanks always, for reading and reviewing - you brighten my day._


	11. Chapter 11

_A/N: I don't know how much time I've spent re-writing, re-reading and obsessively editing this chapter. Right now, I'm still not certain if it's any better than the first draft. But it'll probably get worse the more I muck around with it, so I figured it best to get it up before I screw everything up._ _I feel somewhat obligated to give my readers some warning about twisted behaviour in this chapter (do note that it's a direct continuation of chapter 9)._

_Thanks for reading as always. _

* * *

The journey within the spaces of time and realms lasts an eternity hidden within a heartbeat.

Jane lands in yet another pathway, preparing to compensate for the sudden loss of balance but the arm around her steadies her unexpectedly and is released so quickly that it nearly makes her keel over again. She opens her eyes and looks up, hoping for another glimpse of the emotion that had shone through earlier, but Loki's eyes are hooded, their green duller, a little more opaque.

His face gives nothing away. "This will suffice for now."

The full armour is gone mid-teleport, leaving him in the usual leather outfit that she's gotten used to.

"Where are we?"

Her breath frosts as she stares out onto a harsh winter landscape of jagged peaks and dark grey skies, the elemental desolation of the place making her shiver more than the cold does. As though sensing her discomfort, the cloak that she wears seems to curl itself around her more tightly, emanating unusual warmth despite its thinness.

"A place through which Malekith's army has not yet marched."

The ringing silence is pounding hard in her head, loud and disorienting. The newly-closed wound in her side throbs and she rushes to place a hand there, willing the phantom soreness away.

A cold hand comes to rest over hers lightly and the unsettling sensation fades. Again, it is gone before she can even process what Loki has done.

"The strain of constant travel between pathways is exacerbated with previously-sustained injury," he tells her clinically, as though dispensing medical advice she doesn't really need.

It is disconcerting to think of Loki as her unwilling saviour, just as he'd callously taken the lives of thousands without blinking. Had he really done so because he'd felt indebted – the Norse god of mischief – to a mere mortal?

Even she knows better than to believe this flimsy excuse.

Rather than entertain her inward thoughts any further, Jane simply voices her instinctive reactions. "What is this? Why are we here? Where is this place?"

Loki gives her a long, hard stare. "Somewhere between Midgard, Svartalfheim and Niflheim."

She takes a look around again, marvelling again at the drastic change found within a single jump.

This is the astrophysicist's dream and much more. This is where mathematics and science become something she cannot explain, leaving her unable to do anything but feast her eyes on the most incredible sights she could have seen ever since Thor had come for her.

But now, even the prospect of pathway-hopping isn't as exciting as it should have been when overwhelming worry for Darcy, Erik and Thor is quickly overriding its heady, initial thrill.

Superimposed over these starry skies is the lone memory of an uncomplicated, routine set-up in Puente Antiguo where the biggest headaches come from thick files that wouldn't close and sets of data that don't correlate and not from magical beings that wield their sorcery with malice.

"Does this mean we're going from branch to branch just to avoid Malekith's armies?"

He gives her a sideways glance, then casts an assessing look around the barren, icy wasteland. "I have, as you mortals would say, affairs of my own to attend to."

It's entirely expected that she isn't part of the picture. She has never really been, until Thor had made it his business to insert her in the middle of a longstanding, cosmic feud that she doesn't really understand.

The desperate yearning for home washes over her again. Even if home means being on the outside of the respected circles of academia, looking in wistfully.

Then the horrifying thought sinks in…does Loki mean to leave her here? But why then, would he bother saving her life, given the number of deviously creative ways – that don't even involve magic – he has up his sleeve to end it?

As resourceful as she can be, Jane knows that there are no plans she can make, no compass she can use to get where she needs to be. Which leaves her no choice but to push the issue, again.

"So you're deciding for the both of us now?" Bravado will always be the instinctive way she approaches him.

A mock-innocent expression settles on his face. "I don't see you having a choice in this matter."

"Can't we go back?"

"Back?"

"Home," Jane says softly, then braces herself for a scathing reply. It is after all, a _non-place_ for him, a deceptively simple notion that's powerful enough to strip him of his peace and his sanity.

She isn't disappointed. He rounds on her, the savage fierceness in his piercing stare nearly making her take an involuntary step back.

"And where is _home_?"

"To Earth, maybe? Or even Asgard?" She supplies weakly, suddenly uncertain of herself in the wake of his volatility. "To see if everything…or if Thor-"

With narrowed eyes, Loki cuts in swiftly with a brutal rebuttal that pulls the rug from under her feet.

She tumbles spectacularly, landing in a place that _shouldn't_ hurt that much but does.

"But what we want aren't necessarily the things we get, isn't it? With Midgard subjugated by Malekith's forces, where can you go? Asgard's no more home to you than it is to me. And it will never be yours to call it such," he bites out, "No more than Thor Odinson can be yours."

Her breath leaves her chest almost painfully, his carefully-enunciated words cutting her to shreds as easily as one of his sharp blades would have. With the little he has said he's managed to articulate the insecurities about herself that she's had to face time and again ever since Thor had swept her away from the destruction wrought by Malekith's forces on Earth. To hear it spoken out loud by someone who had nothing but disdain for the entire human race felt like the greatest violation of all, only because it had become increasingly clear in the past days that he seemed to have always understood more than anyone else because he'd been forced to live _her_ weaknesses.

But unlike Thor, whose three days on Earth had taught him about placing the grander notions of sacrifice and loyalty above his inbred sense of entitlement, Loki would never accept anything less than what he'd been promised. To suffer far beneath what he thinks he ought to have is punishment he will never accept. But to suffer the frailties of a race he despises had been utter, devastating abasement from the very start – an identical chastisement that he hadn't hesitated to turn on her.

Jane feels the hot, humiliating sting of tears gathering against her lids. Only pride and rising anger refuse to let him have the satisfaction of seeing them fall. So she takes his thrust and parries, even though she knows she'll never win against the Liesmith.

"There is no home that I haven't rejected."

He stiffens immediately. "You know nothing of what you speak, Jane Foster. Your counsel is best left to your own."

"I haven't rejected the love of a family, a brother who never gives up on you-"

"They are nothing to me."

Now that she knows he bleeds and feels much more than what he lets on, words can also be her true ally as much as they have been his twisted one.

"Oh, really? From what I've seen, they're _everything_ to you," she retorts, "You wouldn't have done the things you did if you didn't care what they thought."

"The things I did? To cause mayhem? To further my rule on Midgard? To subjugate? If that is your definition of caring, then I like it," he says with callous amusement.

He's messing with her, twisting her words, deflecting the turn of the conversation. "That's not what I meant and you know it," she swallows hard, chagrined at how weak she sounds.

She finds a cool hand snaking up the back column of her neck, his touch on her skin creating sensations inchoate. She won't shrug away, not if that gives him any latitude to think she's cowering in fear.

"Then what do you mean, Jane?" He questions silkily as the pressure at her neck intensifies a fraction. "What then, is your special brand of caring that has brought the mighty son of Asgard to his knees?"

That's what it all comes down to, isn't it? That obsessive jealousy with his brother whom he thought had everything.

A hysterical laugh bubbles out of her as she swipes surreptitiously at the traitorous wetness that she finds on her cheeks. Shaking with the effort to hold onto a beacon of logic and reasoning as his words seek to ensnare her, defiance becomes her only weapon against the sharp end of his silver tongue.

"Why don't you ask him that then?" She challenges, painfully aware of his proximity and the bright burn of his eyes on her. "Every answer I give won't be good enough."

He shakes his head minutely and tilts it downwards as though murmuring a secret meant for her ears alone. "Quite the contrary, my dear. In fact, I find seeking answers from the source more to my liking."

Tilting her chin upwards, Jane tries to meet his gaze, emboldened by a sudden burst of inspiration.

"You really want to know? Maybe it's about showing kindness when it's most needed and giving help when it isn't deserved." The contempt that she throws into her reply is however, merely a translucent film shielding her growing discomfort and she's sure Loki sees through it immediately. "As I've said before, maybe it's something you wouldn't understand."

His lips simply tilt upward in response to her short, scornful tirade.

"Was that all it'd taken to change Odinson? To have made him a self-proclaimed protector of Midgard? Unremitting kindness shown to a fool who only knew human strength in his limbs, which made him weak and soft?"

Is that what he really thinks? Had he viewed his brother's transformation so simplistically that he'd search far and wide for a single answer where there is none?

Or is he seeking an answer for his own weakness, now that he himself had been in the same position as Thor was when she found him – powerless, humiliated, yet with all the arrogance in all the realms that befitted a prince of Asgard?

"Are we still talking about Thor or about you?"

There's intended malice in her words even as a hard grip falls on her upper arms, strong enough to bruise. But there's still something else inside of her that will not give into his games that she'd unwittingly learned to play.

His gaze sharpens with rage and for a terrifying instant, she's convinced that she has just signed her own death warrant. Instead, all she hears is a soft question, more deadly in its hushed delivery than his spitting fury.

"You presume to know everything about gods, don't you? You believe me to be as readable as your golden prince-"

"Thor spent three days on earth, Loki! Three _goddamned_ days! It takes more than an infatuation to change that much in three days," she bites out, frustration and bitterness lacing her words. "If you really believe that, then maybe you don't understand human nature at a-"

His hands find their way into her hair and Jane forgets to breathe.

"Maybe it's _you_ who doesn't understand my _brother_," he snarls back without missing a beat, "and what he was before he met you."

A broken sob rises and dies in her throat and she's sure that every emotion is scraped raw and presented to him on a plate to devour. Immobilised by his cruel embrace, she reminds herself that he's irredeemable, a merciless destroyer, an unfeeling bastard who manipulates and stops at nothing to get what he wants.

"If you really believe that," she repeats her previous phrase for emphasis, "then maybe you're more deluded than I thought."

"I'm no more deluded than you are if you truly believe no one is beyond redemption," Loki hisses and chuckles humourlessly as he turns the full force of his glare on her. "Is that the reason you threw yourself in front of the blade that was intended for me? Why would you otherwise sacrifice yourself for a _monster_?"

Frigga's blade appears in a flash of light in his hands and the metal's gentle touch against her face is cold but temporary, disappearing into thin air before she can say another word.

The initial terror that she'd felt near him, lulled into false sense of security, returns with the force of a hurricane. Yet the force behind Loki's glare is tempered by a raw, brittle emotion that she cannot name, as though he himself earnestly seeks the answer to the questions that he had just thrown at her.

The accusations leave her slack-jawed and discomfited, forcing her to confront that moment of madness when she'd dived in front of the Svartalfar blade coming for him. She should have known Loki wouldn't have ever let this go. At least, not without wrangling an answer from her that will satisfy him fully.

Chagrined, Jane knows that there'd been no lofty reasons for her impulsive actions. No grand, structured plan of redemption, save for her possibly deluded idea that he had slowly become less and less a faceless monster and more like a man who bled, bruised and hurt.

All the little things that she has seen…she thinks it's more than anger than drives him; it's jealousy and resentment and hate rolled into one, a pulsing groan and a deep cry of twisted humanity that a fallen and damaged god of mischief will never admit to. And it's this anchoring conviction that prevents her from giving into the temptation to reduce him to an uncontrollable force of chaos wrapped deceptively in human form, a trickster who'd long fallen over the precipice of sanity.

He'd hung her out to dry, baited her, wrung her raw with his relentless questions…but he'd also saved her life a few times over, when he'd been less than obliged to do so.

Even then, a part of her both recognises and welcomes the brokenness that comes from failure.

It's not something she wants to examine too closely, much preferring the easier notion that there're distinct lines between them demarcating the clear separation of good and evil. But Loki's penchant for dwelling in shades of grey has all but brought her mind up to speed to what her heart had already suspected.

And there's no way in hell she's ever going to let him know that.

As a deflection, Jane tries extricating herself from his hold on her. But the motion is a futile struggle, a foregone conclusion. Instead, it only results in the tightening of the circle of his arms around her, the dark familiarity of it thrilling a part of her that he's awakened.

"I know what I am," she says, choosing only to answer the first part of his question.

"Do you? Go on, enlighten me," he hisses.

"I'm Jane Foster, astrophysicist, failed academic. Outsider." The last word comes out as a choked admission. She ploughs on blindly, "But no more than you are an outcast of Asgard, a-"

"The truth hurts, doesn't it?"

Unbelievably, there's a flash of understanding – or perhaps of aching empathy? – that seeps into his answer. It's gone as soon as she blinks, his stance stiffening contrarily to the mockingly polite look that settles over his face.

"Answer the question, Miss Foster," he repeats darkly, "What is it about you that changed Odinson?"

"I don't know," she tells him baldly. "I don't know the answer, okay?"

"You simply underestimate yourself. You do know the answer, Jane." Loki's voice drops low, taking on an unexpected, mesmerising quality that both attracts and repulses her. But beyond that tinge of madness, she thinks she sees something else-

"Let me make it a little easier for you then," he says, "Why don't you show me? Show me what you despise about me. Show me how a god should so wrongfully crave and desire a mortal," he continues, his face now a calculated mask of placid indifference.

"Wh-"

Unheeding of her interruption, he barrels through her growing shock.

"-touch me how you would touch a monster and not a hero. Kiss me the way you will never kiss Thor."

_Oh fuck. No, god, this can't be happening. _

"No! I…I-" she stammers more in shame than horror, hating the surge of heat that reflexively courses through her body at his words.

Any minute now, she's convinced that she is going to wake up in her trailer and stumble through the routine of studying the skies for anomalies that-

Her incredulous disbelief is wiped from conscious thought as Loki leaves her no time to consider his demand. Tilting his head downwards just as he hauls her smaller frame upwards to meet his, his mouth claims hers in a punishing kiss.

Reality sets in a second later as she forcibly breaks away and swings her fist at him. As though anticipating that move, Loki simply stops her brace in mid-air with a single hand, then presses in again, slanting his lips against her own to muffle the groan that escapes hers. The pressure of his lips gradually lessens, but all Jane can think about is the dominating heat and the curious, desperate yearning that seem to creep into the kiss as the winds pick up and swirl a cloak of snow around them.

Shoving reason and logic aside, she reaches upwards and fists her hands in the hard leather bands underneath the high collar of his surcoat until the tips of her fingers brush the gently curling ends of his hair, losing herself in his heady scent of leather and pine.

As though sensing her capitulation, Loki wordlessly coaxes her lips open, deepening the kiss. Helpless not to follow him down, she feels his smile against her mouth when she finally matches his movements. Only then does he pull away without warning, putting enough distance between them before she's able to find steady ground beneath her feet.

For once, Jane sees a barely-caged wildness that swirls in that emerald gaze when all she'd expected was smug triumph. But before coherent thought can even return, Loki is already bending the pathways again, plunging her into breathless sensation as the jagged mountain peaks fade from her vision.


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: Just 2 more chapters to go...and we're done! Thanks for reading. You make my day._

* * *

The familiar spirals of Asgard materialises the moment the dizzying feeling of teleportation fades.

By the time Jane opens her eyes, she finds herself disoriented and standing alone on the Bifrost. Immediately she trips over her own feet, thrown off balance by the translucent, shimmering hues constituting this horizontal plane that's seemingly suspended over the roiling sea.

"Welcome to Asgard once more, Lady Jane."

A deep voice greets her just as a steadying hand falls on her shoulder. She looks up to see the guardian of the Asbru bridge with a slight smile on his stern face. But her thoughts aren't lingering on the splendour of the Observatory or on Asgard's incredible skyline as they had when she'd found herself here for the very first time.

"Where is-" She bursts out, barely registering the surprise that fills the towering man's face. "Where's Loki?"

"Did you not arrive alone, Lady Foster?"

"No, we-…uh, I-" she stutters her confusion and tries again for a modicum of calm without giving into the need to fidget. Not being entirely successful in that endeavour, Jane settles for clasping her hands in front of her and twisting her fingers until they knot tightly. "No, I didn't. Loki teleported us back. He's…he's not here?"

Why had he brought her back to Asgard, when he's explicitly crowed about her inability to belong in here?

But that was before they'd-

Heimdall pulls her from her panicked thoughts as he speaks, his eyes glowing a deeper shade of gold as his piercing gaze turns inward.

"I cannot see him, even if he is here. But the second prince has always been adept at shielding himself from my sight."

Instinctively, Jane casts her eyes about, searching the odd angles and the edges of the shining buildings, hoping for a glimpse of him, or even a shadow of him. But if Loki is invisible even to the all-seeing guardian of the Bifrost, what chance is there for her to find him when he doesn't want to be seen?

All she knows is the deeply unsettled feeling and overwhelming confusion that he'd left her with after-

Any further rumination on that upsetting incident is disrupted by a jubilant shout of her name that comes from the other end of the bridge. Even from this distance, Jane recognises the tall, golden form of Thor, majestic in his flowing grey cloak with Mjolnir hanging at his belt.

He reaches her with the help of Mjolnir before her smaller strides can eat up the distance between them.

Jane finds herself being pulled into a hug that squeezes the breath from her lungs. Against her better judgement, she feels the unexpected heat of tears pool in the corner of her eyes as the true weight of her emotions slams into her.

There's overwhelming relief that Thor lives, flickering gratitude for the possibility of going back to a pretence that is _them_ and above all, unspoken hope that he could, somehow make _things_ right, as unfair as those thoughts are.

Guilt follows in the wake of that deceitful hope.

What then, can she really do? Would Thor bring her back to Earth – where life would continue as it did, purposeful, but dull and boring? The last few weeks have shown her that it would have been better to stay a forgotten academic who simply _dreamed_ of bigger things in the stars.

When Thor finally pulls back from the embrace, she sees his searching gaze linger on her face.

"I feared the worst when Malekith took you," he tells her and lifts a hand to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "How did you manage to get back on your own? Svartalfheim is a treacherous place even for the Aesir and few find its pathways back unscathed."

Jane opens her mouth to find that words do not come as easily as she hopes. Why is it so difficult to tell him what had really happened?

"I was in a cave," she begins, "and then Loki found me."

A worried frown pulls Thor's eyebrows tight together after the surprise fades from his face. "I see. Were you harmed in any way?" He asks her abruptly.

"What? No, no," she rushes to reassure him, still at a loss for words. "I…it's actually a long story. We-, no, I-"

Her hesitation only seems to upset him further. "Jane, if Loki had dared to touch-"

"It wasn't like that, Thor," she tells him quietly. "He didn't hurt me." At least not quite, she adds to herself mentally. Loki hadn't just dared to touch her. He'd simply _taken_ what he wanted from her.

But Thor merely gives her an unconvinced nod. His next question is brief and predictable. "You will tell me more of your adventures?"

_Adventures_?

Jane barely stifles a hysterical laugh at that word. If nearly getting killed time and again in enemy territory constitutes an adventure for Thor, she hates to think about what he might actually deem 'dangerous'.

"I was thrown out of the way when Algrim engaged you in battle," she starts again as she feels his arm curl reassuringly over her shoulders.

The story that she ends up telling Thor is a heavy edit of the past few weeks.

Jane talks about Malekith, the Svartalfar scouts and how Loki had – possibly unwittingly – saved her from them. But she's barely shaking off that blinding encounter with Loki before she's asked to explain everything she herself doesn't really understand.

Thor sits strangely spellbound throughout it all, punctuating her narrative with grunts and earnest glances each time she glosses over a particularly bad episode.

Does he suspect anything more than what she's telling him? Maybe he does.

Then he only goes on to say that she has been very brave. There isn't anything but praise and admiration behind those words.

When Jane searches for subtext where there is none, then realises that even the time spent in a Trickster's company is life-altering: it makes her doubt and question more than she should, scrutinising goodness when it should be accepted wholeheartedly, assigning blame where it shouldn't belong.

This mighty son of Asgard – she even uses Loki's own name for Thor unconsciously – is entirely undeserving of a woman who has been changed because of his brother's devious ways.

She expects that revelation to punch her deep.

Except that there's nothing. No regret for what could have been, no towering emotion of guilt or shame or anger. She can however, be honest enough in her explanation, such that by the end of it, both of them aren't under any illusions that Asgard is and will always be his home, much as it isn't and will never be hers.

oOo

Cloaked in invisibility, Loki inhales deeply as he watches the awkward reunion between Odinson and Jane Foster from afar. The Asgardian night enfolds him like the warm embrace of a familiar friend, whispering her cool wind upon his skin that most shudder away from.

But not him.

Loki wields the heaviness of that particular magic well ever since that day he'd learned to conquer it. Now, he wraps it more securely around his shoulders, drawing in its tendrils like a comforting coat of protection that had been lost for far too long.

Still, he watches as Jane Foster hesitates briefly, turning her head around as though searching for something, then ducking her head almost in defeat as she follows Odinson down the length of the Asbru bridge. Yet his fists clench at the easy way she accepts Thor's affections. Along with his unexplained annoyance, the hidden magic of his shameful heritage sparks and snaps a warning burst of cold before it simmers and disappears beneath the surface of Odin's illusion spells.

He'd taken his rage out on her, violating her mouth as he fought to reconcile his own turmoil over his unthinking behaviour as they battled Malekith's soldiers. That much he will concede. Wasn't it a natural consequence after all, of his loathing for her and the weakness she so readily displays – that mortal who'd changed Thor beyond recognition?

Or perhaps he loathes himself more for giving into the need to subjugate her by means of that kiss, only to surrender shamefully when she'd responded, an insidious voice in his head whispers.

Loki gives himself a good shake, taking the time to centre his thoughts and to cast them in a direction that's actually productive.

Jane Foster means nothing to him, which is why he can finally put her back in Asgard as soon as he'd taken what he wanted from her, in a game that he relished then tired of quickly. Thor's concern for her is so obvious, so overt…and will probably be an unnecessary sentiment that will do nothing but hinder the oaf's blundering judgement. If this marked _infantilism_ is the result, then there's no part of which that he desires to partake.

Loki stays where he is a moment longer, then pulls away, taking a last look at Asgard's sprawling vistas that remain magnificent despite the destruction that had been wrought on them. Then he quashes down the unwanted feeling of homesickness and uncertainty as he strides down the long, familiar corridors. He takes a deliberate turn to avoid his personal chambers and slinks into an isolated, forgotten corner of the city where he can actually look upon Yggdrasil's tumultuous pathways.

The realms are open to him, yet there isn't anywhere he will ever call _home_ as he did Asgard. The time spent incarcerated without the exertion of Thanos's conditioning had at least, stripped him of the delusion that as ruler of Midgard, he would have had something that not only belonged to him, but also some place where he _belonged_.

The bald truth remains that he needs no physical anchor, no location where he can work his trickery and mischief.

Place therefore, as Loki determines, matters little.

All that matters is…himself – his own obligations to fulfil, his own resourcefulness to rely on and his own pleasures to see to. There will be no more home and its fancy, misguided connotations of love and warmth but nomadic wanderings as he pleases.

Pleased with having resolved that minor conundrum, he braces himself mentally and summons his magic, feeling the pull of teleportation crunch at the core fibres of the world tree's branches.

Yet Yggdrasil's pathway ends mid-stream, much like a broken branch that tears apart from its parent's nurturing trunk because of great strain, chucking him in a corner of Midgard that he knows he had never visited.

The world finally rights itself as Loki waits for the sudden disorientation to fade.

His practiced eye scans the barren rock and the molten rivers of fire that roll slowly through the landscape, the uncomfortable temperature of the place already causing the heavy leather of his garments to cling uncomfortably to his skin. He tries to ignore the discomfort, even though the heat and the stinging, sulphurous odour are wreaking havoc on his beleaguered senses.

Reality is shifting, distorting before his eyes, as the power imbued in the rocks seems to expand outward, encompassing him in a red halo that warps the air. As though responding to the primeval call of fire, his Jotunn form surfaces, a diametric opposition to the caged wall of the inferno that longs to be unleashed.

_You heard my call, son of Laufey. Or should I say, son of Ymir, father of the Jotnar? _

An extraordinary voice rumbles its approval in his head and Loki sways palpably with its sheer magnitude. Even imprisoned in the core of Midgard, the fire demon's hold over the elements is strong.

Focus.

He needs focus.

"I merely heeded my own instincts, Surtur," Loki replies steadily, not bothering to shield himself under Odin's illusion. "And I know what it is you wish for."

_Then you know that my lock can only be broken with Asgardian magic. _

So it was what he'd suspected all along. Malekith's effort at burrowing through Midgard to free his master has come to a standstill.

"Tell me your plans," he deflects the fire demon's command with a demand of his own.

_Free me, son of Laufey and you will rule the realms with me. _

It is an echo of a promise made to him by another, the consequences of which he hadn't liked at all. In fact, the memory of being a pawn of Thanos still manages to elicit a measure of burning shame in his gut. But Surtur's power far surpasses the pitiable strength of Thanos and the Chitauri and Loki immediately recognises the benefits of such an alliance.

Negotiations, however, should never be passed up.

"When are alliances ever that simple?" He asks and smiles, running his tongue lightly over his sharpened teeth.

_They are not. They are made so that the blackest treachery will taint them. _

Loki gets the feeling that muted laughter is issuing from the cracks deep below. "Indeed," he murmurs.

_Watch, Laufeyson!_

Abruptly, the red halo that surrounds him swirls in a circular pattern, fire meeting ice in perfectly balanced opposition.

_In the beginning, life came from the clash of fire and ice. The life of a Jotunn named Ymir. Out of his loins came Bestla and Bor who begat Odin Borson. _

A flashback falls into his mind like a spear to the heart – of a time when Yggdrasil's branches were still young – and he's suddenly filled with blinding images of an ancient battle in the outer reaches of the realms as treachery lifted her hand and wove her intricate net around the founders of the Aesir.

_The son of Bor pined for the day he would rule over all gods. With my help, he took the life essences of his brothers Vili and Ve and forsook his father's spirit that lay in eternal winter. When Borson crowned himself the All-father of Asgard, he showed his gratitude by imprisoning me on this rock. _

Through this red-tinged haze, Loki watches the violent events of a time long gone with a fascination and hunger that he'd always saved for his intellectual pursuits. Surtur's memories simply affirm his cynical observations of the All-father being far from the blameless deity many Asgardians deem him to be.

As soon as the story is told, a softer, more welcoming illusion takes its place, a vision of a realm bound by a fire demon's all-powerful rule.

The stranglehold of Surtur's own narrative is released as abruptly as it had dropped into his head, leaving him panting yet wanting more for a story that really, isn't his to meddle with. Surtur's bone of contention had always lain with Odin and the convenient timing of the Odinsleep will work to his advantage.

With a devilish smirk, Loki thinks that it is probably best _not_ to get in the way of that pending confrontation.

_Now that you have seen and understood, Loki Laufeyson, what will be your decision? _

There is more than a touch of impatience in Surtur's rumbling voice that warns of the consequences of _not_ consenting.

Lightly prodding at Surtur's chains with his own magic, Loki ignores the subtle change in emotion that causes the halo to tremble and sifts through the intricate spellwork that Odin had cast to keep the fire spirit out of all dimensions.

He frowns and tries again.

As impressively robust as these chains are, the remnants of the All-father's magic feels unusually sloppy here, almost as though he had cobbled the last of his strength together for the final banishment of an equally exhausted fire being.

So Odin had truly found his match in this one, Loki thinks with some satisfaction.

A snarl curls his lips as he recognises – with no small amount of irony – the similarities in their situations. Surtur knows his restraints can only be broken by those whose magic have been forged in Asgard. But Loki _will_ _not_ revisit the dubious reasons that had torn his own chains asunder.

Keeping his own counsel for now, Loki bows his head slightly, taking a moment to consider every outcome and its potential ramifications. He will answer to no one but himself and despite what Surtur might think, today isn't going to mark the day where he's held to ransom by an imprisoned spirit's demands.

Mischief and trickery have always been his poison as well as his antidote, or more appropriately, _his_ _salvation_.

No matter its consequences and the tidal wave of destruction that they leave in their wake.

Even at this pressing hour, he sees no need to forsake the secrets of his trade.

There is some personal pride after all, that he takes in being an entity whose motives cannot be picked out with a fine-tooth comb. To subject himself to a fool's insistence that the cosmos can be easily divided into comprehensible parts is no better than to subscribe to foolishness.

Loki grins. The cold that's inherent in his Jotunn form intensifies in response to that feral emotion, extinguishing parts of the red mist that touch his skin.

"I might be convinced to do so if a certain number of…conditions are fulfilled."

_You think yourself in a position to negotiate? _

The voice is taunting, with the power of a thousand suns blazing behind it.

The veiled threat behind that posturing hardly bothers him. "Perhaps you would like to ask yourself that very question."

With a smirk, he waits in the dour silence.

_Name them. _

And so he does, beginning a session that takes a longer time than he expects and ends only when all of his demands are met.

_Now that we are done, Laufeyson, there is no recourse. _

"You have my word," he says with false sincerity.

_Then free me. _

The corners of his lips turn up as Loki murmurs an incantation that shatters the fire demon's chains.


	13. Chapter 13

Thor doesn't claim to fully understand the dimensions of space or the way it bends or how the constellations he stares at every day mark every transformative moment in Yggdrasil's growth. Yet as he stands at the expansive balcony of the royal palace, he's sure this faint but unsettling ripple that races through the air is such a moment.

Without second thought, he hefts Mjolnir and in a flash, finds himself at the observatory where Heimdall stations himself. After a frantic second of wild searching, he sees the guardian of the Bifrost standing stock-still at the far end of the bridge, the sheen in his golden eyes rivalling the glare of the very stars he guards.

He bellows his greeting. "Heimdall, what news?"

A pregnant pause ensues as Heimdall's eyes slowly circle the skies.

"Midgard trembles under a horde of demons, unleashed from the realm's fiery core. They torment its citizens."

Thor pales considerably under that pronouncement and whispers words of fortification for his Avengers. They cannot count on his presence today, especially not when a greater peril awaits Asgard. Earth's stalwart defenders, he thinks regretfully, must forge onwards on their own strength for a while. But he hopes that with their fortitude and ingenuity, they will yet prevail.

They must.

Then the implication of Heimdall's revelation rocks him to the core.

"Surtur has been freed," he breathes grimly, "and it is likely he searches for the All-father."

"Indeed."

"What more do you see?"

_Hofuð_'s bronze cross-guard glints as Heimdall's fists tighten on its hilt. "Anarchy and chaos, my prince. I sense a great evil across the realms. But I cannot tell you what you seek. "

A worried frown crosses Thor's face, anxiety pushing him to restlessly pace the length of the observatory. "Is the enemy shielded from us as we speak?"

The guardian bows his head in regret. "Yes. I believe that-" He stops abruptly, the low timbre of voice changing as he suddenly twists and swings _Hofuð_ out of its position in the observatory's only keyhole. The long, heavy sword comes to rest in his hands, raised in a position to strike. "Malekith, in league with the fire demon, now marches for Asgard a second time with the ranks of his loyal warriors by his side. His strength is undiminished and is once more, bolstered by Surtur's own. I have locked down the Asbru bridge, but I fear it will do little to stop him."

Thor feels a sudden tightening in his chest at the grave pronouncement. "And what of Surtur?"

"The fire demon will find his way to the All-father."

"So they come. For Asgard."

"So it would seem."

"How is this possible? You said this is an enemy that even you cannot see."

"I have no good reason for this vision. But for a fleeting moment, it was as though all veils were lifted and I could see a portion of the enemy's plans. It disappeared as quickly as it came, but it is enough."

"By the Norns," Thor replies heavily. As remarkable as this anomaly is, he seeks no further explanation for it. He is simply grateful for this warning. "There is no coincidence in the timing."

"No. I believe Malekith's first siege of Asgard was merely meant to ascertain the weakness of the Aesir. This time, he marches not only to divide, but to conquer and destroy. Rally the troops, my prince."

Thor clenches his weapon in his hand more tightly, absorbing the power of the elements that Mjolnir effortlessly sweeps into him. It's humming the tune of a coming battle, discordant and jarring in the hushed silence of the gilded observatory.

A ferocious smile crosses his face. "This is, as Tony Stark might say, the _real thing_."

Surprised confusion blazes temporarily in the guardian's face at his unusual choice of words. "It may be as you say," Heimdall concedes. "Let us call the soldiers forth in this last stand."

"Indeed," Thor murmurs as he raises the hammer high. "Asgard will not fall. Not if I have a hand in preventing it."

The circular walls of the observatory disappear from his sight as he streaks across the sprawling courtyards and its boulevards to ready the troops for battle.

What was that Midgardian term that he'd heard so often before their Avengers carelessly hurled themselves into a skirmish?

_Showtime. _

oOo

Jane finds herself restlessly pacing the hallways, alternating between looking out of the vistas that had once overawed her into inarticulate wonder and taking in the unnatural stillness that seems to have befallen the golden city.

In the short time that she has been here, she'd learned that there is always movement in Asgard, whether it's an ever-present wind that whispers through the leaves or a constant stream of footsteps that grind through the corridors.

The silence is a sudden, threatening change in the atmosphere.

At last it occurs to her that this peculiarity is eerily familiar, a reminder of a summer she spent with Erik in parts of rural Sweden when a bright afternoon had suddenly turned grey, cold and still. He had hurriedly ushered her into an underground chamber he'd fashioned for such occasions and she'd simply obeyed, listening breathlessly to his animated stories of ravaging cyclones that tore apart entire landscape as they waited out the rattling sounds of the intensifying weather. It was only later that she'd learnt hundreds perished in a hurricane that had whipped its way through Sweden's east coast.

As she squints out at the shimmering Asgardian landscape now, Jane recognises 2the calm before a storm.

"You might like to take a rest in your chambers, my dear. Your time in Svartalfheim has been trying and you will be shown the hospitality you have rightfully earned."

A voice rings out of nowhere and she whips around, startled by just how many people have actually come to the great hall.

Frigga, her handmaidens, Sif and the Warriors Three stand some distance behind her, but she hears the queen as clearly as though she'd spoken from her side. The tense cast on Frigga's features is far from reassuring despite her kind words to someone who shouldn't even be in Asgard.

"Thank you, your Majesty," she mumbles out of politeness, unable to keep her eyes off the horizon, still hoping somehow that she can catch a glimpse of Loki. "But I'd like to be here for now, if you don't mind."

A flash of red and gold materialises in her peripheral vision as soon as she finishes speaking. By the time she turns around, she sees Thor already surrounded by his friends. Hanging back for a while as they confer urgently in hushed tones, Jane quashes the feeling of insignificance and moves slowly towards them, catching only snatches of conversation – "_Malekith comes"…"his weakness is his reliance on Surtur's strength"…"Heimdall's warning from the Bifrost" – _that are probably not meant for her ears.

"Jane!" Thor interrupts the heated discussion and beckons to her. "How do you fare?"

Uncomfortable with the sudden attention that his loud exclamation is attracting, she waves weakly at him in response.

"I'm fine, Thor, thanks for asking." The seriousness doesn't leave his eyes however, and the coiled tension she sees in them worries her. "What's going on?"

"We prepare to march into battle," he tells her grimly.

"Son of a bitch," she breathes then tries not to clap a hand over her mouth. The expletive leaves her lips as a slip of the tongue and her ears begin to burn red in embarrassment after she receives a mix of curious and stern looks from the Aesir. This isn't over by a long shot, but hearing how soon it is she's going to find herself in the midst of yet another battle leaves her with both apprehensive disbelief and unexpected thrill.

"Sometimes war comes upon us all, even when we don't court it." It's Sif, the dark-haired goddess of war who answers as her own lips tilt minutely upwards at Jane's uncensored reaction to Thor's announcement.

Jane's mind races to play catch up. "How? Uh…when?"

"Loki." The name, uttered quietly from Frigga's lips, brings a sudden halt to the conversation.

She feels her heart skip a beat, hungry for anything that will provide news about him. What had the queen meant by that? Had she known all along where Loki was? Or was she pointing to his culpability in this pending battle or his-

Like her, Thor wants more out of the queen's ambivalent response. A barrage of questions follows as he unknowingly acts as her mouthpiece.

"What do you mean, Mother? Is he alive? Is this yet another one of Loki's nefarious deeds that you have foreseen?"

"No, my son. Loki lives," Frigga is quick to reassure him, but the slight frown forming tight lines on her face makes Jane thinks that she isn't revealing everything she knows. "The details are lost to me, but I know that Loki will be instrumental in this war."

Jane looks up in interest. Is this going to be an insight that the queen – famed for prophecies that she doesn't reveal – will finally make known to those around her?

"When is he _not_ instrumental?" Fandral pipes in mockingly then turns his eyes down towards his boots when Thor shoots him a dirty look.

"Trust the queen's words, my friend," Hogun is quick to cut into what could be an entirely unnecessary brawl. "Although, I must agree wi-"

"Perhaps you three would fight better if you put your swords instead of your tongues to greater use," Sif interrupts flatly, then arches a brow at the startled look Thor gives her.

"Are we talking about Malekith?" Jane cuts in urgently, suddenly remembering what Loki has said about their weakness.

"Yes," Thor says cautiously, "but there is-"

Jane continues, ignoring the assessing looks from all but Frigga, who simply watches with a slight, knowing smile on her face. "Iron. Loads of it. It's their weakness. Possibly their only weakness," she amends.

"It is an unfamiliar element," Volstagg concedes.

"It's plentiful on Earth, I mean, on Midgard," she rushes on, "I was with Loki and when he regained his magic, he defeated them with some spell that brought all of them down in one go. Later he told me that they have a weakness to iron."

A short spell of doubtful silence greets that revelation. Jane blinks and waits, surprised that no one looks thrilled at the solution that Loki has already provided.

"The liesmith is unreliable," Volstagg scoffs.

"And unpredictable," Fandral pipes in.

Her exasperated sigh at their faultfinding ways manages to stop any further rumination on the subject. "Yeah well, shouldn't you guys be concentrating on defeating the enemy instead of quibbling over Loki's less-than-savoury traits?

"There are few of us who practice such sorcery. But only a mage like Loki can master the elements to conjure iron in vast amounts," Thor laments.

"I think the most glaring problem is that he isn't here," Sif points out the obvious. "But yes," she glances knowingly at the Warriors Three, "there are other considerations."

The rest is left unsaid, but Jane hears it as clearly as the words had been spoken.

_Assuming he hasn't already turned on us. And even if he hasn't, can we even count on his help? _

"Mother-"

"My son," Frigga interrupts, "There is little you can do now but fight."

"Yes, but-"

"So go, my King. And keep the faith."

The hardness in Thor's face softens slightly as he turns back to his friends. "We must leave now and prepare even as father sleeps." Sparing a quick look at Jane, he gives Frigga a last, beseeching look that he knows she cannot resist. "Midgard burns. It is no longer safe for her. Bring her somewhere-"

_Burns?_

"Wait, wait!" She cuts in, not caring in the least how impolite it must be to interrupt a royal conversation. "Earth burns?"

Thor purses his lips once in a hesitant grimace and that small motion alone warns her to expect the worst. "Yes. We face a greater foe than Malekith."

"What? I thought…how-"

"Surtur is a malevolent creature of fire, a force feared throughout the Nine. The Svartalfar are his allies and Malekith, his lieutenant. They work together to fulfil their own agendas and now, both will come for Asgard," he says sombrely. "But be assured that we will keep you safe here, Jane. As for Earth, we shall hope that your Avengers will work a miracle yet."

The revelation slams into her as though he had swung Mjolnir hard into her gut. There's too much to process, too little time. Thor speaks matter-of-factly about a shifting, cosmic balance of power when she's barely succeeding in translating myth into reality in terms she can comprehend. It's still taking a while to believe that here in Asgard, they're not just names on faded sheets of paper tucked into dusty book left in a forgotten corner of the library.

It takes a few moments for reality to reshape into a veritable nightmare as she remembers her friends and her forgotten lab back on Earth. Erik, Darcy…and the trailer in Puente Antiguo…everything that she holds dear in a place that she knows as home.

What is happening to them right now?

Jane wants to protest, but the words don't come. She is once again, helpless not by choice, but by nature, in this place where everything surpasses her knowledge and her physical strength. She's all too aware that her presence and her nonexistent military skills would be a hindrance rather than a help to Thor and his warriors.

What can she, a human being with an incomparably frail body do? And hadn't she proved herself incredibly inept at fighting? What is she but an insignificant spot in the tapestry of gods who have, for millennia, shaped the cosmos by their own hands?

In the light of this potentially apocalyptic event, her personal hopes and dreams _are_ puny and inconsequential in comparison.

These past few weeks of impossible highs and close brushes with death have taught her that hard lesson.

But living in the moment does have its dubious advantages; the surge of adrenaline that's her constant companion has long obliterated any thoughts she might have had of a future that may not ever exist. There's every moment to cherish, to keep count of, in a way that science can never explain.

And Jane's keenly aware that she wants every second of it.

A swish of heavy fabric enters her line of sight. Frigga is stretching a hand out towards her with a slight nod of understanding, though there's something akin to compassion shining in her eyes. But then she speaks in a tone that brooks no argument.

"Come with me, my dear. We will join Eir in the healing houses and tend to the injured."

In that instant, Jane sees why Frigga commands the respect and reverence that she does in Asgard.

She follows the queen and her handmaidens in mute acquiescence, looking back only once to see the billow of Thor's cloak as he strides away with his friends.

oOo

Heimdall sees them across the Bifrost: a black, roiling sea of troops that cross the distance too quickly for his liking. Behind them, several sharp-edged destroyers that shatter everything in their wake loom behind the troops like the sharpened teeth of monsters.

The scent of newly-formed ashes fills the air and its foulness assaults his nostrils. Harsh voices speak over the din of the destroyer and in the chatter, Heimdall hears bloodlust speaking.

It is only the first strike.

But Heimdall already knows that the losses will be great.

Turning back, he sees the gleaming armour of the Aesir who stand in wait down the flanks of the city, stretching as far as the ordinary eye can see. In front of them, the acting King of Asgard holds the front line in check as the Warriors Three and the Lady Sif stand by his side.

He closes his eyes, reaching out into a forgotten dimension for an instrument fashioned out of Uru and the bleats of a hundred slaughtered rams. The delicately curved object materialises in his hands as weighty as _Hofuð_, slightly smaller but no less magnificent_._

_Gjallarhorn_.

The horn that prophecy states, when blown, will signal the end of all things, a notion that troubles him greatly. It is said that it was last sounded at his birth, never to be heard again until the rightful time summons it back.

Perhaps it has returned for this very purpose, he thinks, as he winds the _Gjallarhorn_ around his body.

Bringing it to his mouth, he takes a deep breath and blows.

oOo

As _Gjallarhorn_'s resounds through all dimensions, Thor whirls Mjolnir until it becomes a blur to the eyes. The starry skies are instantaneously blanketed with thick, low clouds as criss-crossing flashes of lightning become the only source of illumination against the surge of darkness that rapidly encroaches.

_A wise king never seeks out war, but he must always be ready for it._

The All-father's words, said so long ago, rings in Thor's head. He hadn't heeded that piece of wisdom up until the disastrous invasion of Jotunheim and his subsequent banishment to Midgard. But life as it seems, in the interim, has a strange way of changing the way he now thinks about kingship and power.

He stands on yet another cusp of war that he hasn't sought.

Yet s_ometimes, they seek you just as you look for peace. But I have no plans to die today, _he thinks. _So let it begin._

Thor turns around briefly, solemnly placing a fist over his chest as he faces the troops. Then he raises Mjolnir high and bellows, "For Asgard!"

The Asgardian soldiers echo his shout and then they disappear from sight as he launches himself into the air, past the first charge of the Svartalfar cavalry.

Thor lands straight in the middle of their serried rows with a shock wave that scatters its carefully formed ranks. Taking full advantage of their confusion, he jabs Mjolnir hard into the first dark elf that dares to cross his path, then moves to take out another with dizzying speed. More and more fall by his feet as he methodically works his way through them, clearing the path as much as he can to help the advancing Asgardian troops. He shrugs off two elves when they leap upon him, brings the hammer hard down on another's head, then dives away when he hears the familiar shouts of Sif and Hogun in combat.

All around him, the battle rages on. With every shriek and clash, more blood is spilt on Asgardian soil.

Suddenly, a long blade stops a Svartalfar weapon from going straight through his nose just as he hacks at a distraction from his blind spot. Canting his head towards his saviour, Thor grunts a word of thanks before he sees whose blade and shield have helped save his hide.

"Getting soft in your old-age, my Prince?" Sif raises an eyebrow at him then ducks away to battle another elf before he can answer.

A genuine bark of laughter escapes his lips, an unlikely tune in the disharmonious symphony of carnage. "I knew that-."

But before he can finish his sentence, the ground moves beneath his feet. The plain that he's on disintegrates into a cyclonic spin of black and red material that throws up bodies and loose weaponry like weightless ragdolls. The hurricane of destruction sweeps him up before Mjolnir can answer that abomination of nature and then he's flung far out to the edge of the battle by the sheer force of the winds.

Eventually he lands facedown with a hard thump, but even with the protective armour on, Thor fights just to get his breath back and to keep his vision from blacking out. Slowly, he rights himself and grunts out his pain, knowing more than a few bones have been fractured in that fall. There are larger bits of broken weaponry that are embedded in his exposed skin, but he spares little thought for these small injuries, already setting his sights on returning as quickly as he can.

Allowing Mjolnir to guide his trajectory, Thor lands directly in the hurricane's decimating path a short distance away. As battle-seasoned as he is, he has never experienced the rush of such _malevolent_ power before, not even in the war that he'd brought upon Asgard when he thoughtlessly invaded Jotunheim. For all the time that he has spent by Odin's side in various skirmishes in the realms, none of them actually compares to the horror of what he's seeing now.

Fallen bodies litter the gilded pathways of the Realm Eternal, some of them cleaved in places that they shouldn't ever be. In fact, Thor mournfully notices that several of them are headless as they lie with their swords tightly gripped in their hands, frozen in mid-strike.

Deprived of a blazing send-off into the welcoming halls of Valhalla.

Tears of rage and helplessness turn his vision glassy. When had the Aesir become such easy pickings for the Svartalfar?

For once in his entire long life, Thor's unsure of the outcome, even as all of the Aesir appear to battle to their deaths. Without Loki at his side, he knows even less of their chances of victory.

But he will do all it takes to ensure that Asgard survives, that the Realm Eternal will not be ruined for eternity.

Blinking back his emotions, Thor charges into the heart of the hurricane.

oOo

Malekith's forces are more impressive than what Loki has come to expect. At least it seems that way from this vantage point as he silently observes the battle that rages around him with a mix of distaste and revulsion. Even though he has decided a while back that Asgard is no longer his home, he does not wish to see this beautiful place – or at least _his memories_ of this place – so thoroughly tarnished.

_This is merely a chain of events set in motion when you freed Surtur_, a mocking voice in his head counters.

Hadn't he already known that?

With clenched fists, Loki watches as Heimdall leads an offensive against the second wave of the Svartalfar army. Further yet, he hears a cluster of worried voices and frenzied activity as the injured and the dying are brought into the healing rooms.

Jane.

Her presence flickers above the Aesir's cries.

He finds it strange that he's able to single her out among so many, but it's not a thought to which he wishes to give any weight. Instead, Loki forcibly fixes his attention on the horizon and sees no sign of Surtur.

The Asgardians are disappointingly easy pickings for Malekith, almost guaranteeing a straight path to victory for Surtur's access to Odin. Yet he feels far from triumphant; the destruction of Asgard isn't even a hollow victory that he can celebrate but neither does he think he will rejoice if Odin overcomes Surtur.

A storm brews above, angrier than he has ever seen in a while as the red cyclone tears apart the delicate grounds of Asgard. Bands of lighting streak across the dark sky with such luminescence that he needs to blink away its brightness as the growing wind whips his cape around him. He watches emotionlessly as Thor is flung a distance by the hurricane, then picks himself up irrepressibly…only to run straight back into the path of the whipping winds.

When will Thor ever learn to pick his battles more wisely?

Perhaps never, he thinks with a roll of his eyes.

With a gleeful smirk, Loki leaps into the air and allows his magic to pull him into the heart of the battle. He materialises uncloaked a calculated distance away from where Thor foolishly battles the hurricane, his daggers already in his hands. With a quick, muttered spell, the make of his knives change. They grow heavier, more clunky and less…polished than the lightweight yet resilient Asgardian metal that he's used to.

Inwardly scoffing at how poorly inferior Midgardian iron is and how disappointingly it lends itself to battle, Loki thrusts them hard into the bodies of the Svartalfar, watching them disintegrate with dark satisfaction. He sends more daggers flying out from his hands as they find their mark deep in the throats of the elves where their armour is the weakest, then recalls them back as he begins a fresh round of attack. Conjuring a few doubles, he leaves them to guard the fixed perimeter where no Svartalfar will cross.

The air shifts subtly as he weaves the disparate threads of magic together.

Immediately, he sees his efforts come to fruition. The shields and the swords of all the Asgardian warriors take on the darker, silvery tinge of iron and with each blow that rings out against the Svartalfar, the elven army is driven back slowly but surely as their forces weaken under the onslaught of that strange, Midgardian element.

Loki grins at the murmurs of confusion that flit through both sides of the battlefield. He teleports himself into another section of the plain and does the exact same thing, satisfied at how easily the tide turns.

It's all going to plan.

oOo

There is chaos everywhere.

Tucked in an unobtrusive corner of the city, the healing rooms have become Asgard's busiest place, the unlikeliest last line of defence that that keeps souls from passing into Valhalla. The gauzy screens that had once helped ensure the privacy of their wards, have all now been stripped in order to maximise the limited space. A utilitarian hall is all that remains, lined with cots arranged in straight rows and columns.

If the battlefield is a slaughterhouse, the healing rooms simply deal with the ghastly aftermath of the butchery. The floor is stained with the bright red of Asgardian blood, occasionally punctuated by the viscous black ooze of the Svartalfar. There's little use cleaning it up when the warriors do not stop coming, quickly outnumbering the number of healers who can cast their spells fast enough to knit both flesh and bone back together.

Doing everything she can to take her mind off the battle, Jane mindlessly does whatever Eir tells her to do as she helps tend to the scores of the injured. Again, she's a fish out of water, a nurse transported back in time onto the bloody battlefields of the American frontiers, rushing to aid the wounded with her inadequate hands.

She grabs a clean stack of linens, bends over slightly and presses it into the split ribs of a female warrior. Only when the bleeding is passably stemmed does she signal the healer beside her who hurriedly comes over to work the necessary healing spells.

And then it's onto the next. Rinse, lather and repeat.

It's Eir herself who comes over this time, murmuring an incantation that removes the corrosive dark magic burrowed deep in their stab wounds. Then she scurries away to tend to the next victim.

Jane busies herself with packing the wound of yet another warrior whose arm bleeds severely.

Maybe what she's doing isn't the most productive of actions, but at least she likes to think it's her own form of contribution to a war that makes victims of them all.

A loud cry from an injured Asgardian pierces the cacophony of sounds in the healing rooms. Pausing to wipe the beads of sweat on her face, Jane straightens at the unusual noise.

Is that…?

Having spent just minutes – or hours – in here, she recognises the sounds of numerous healing spells being muttered, of the anxious voices of the healers and the pained groans of the dying. There's a sinking feeling in her stomach that she cannot ignore when the distant clash of metal against metal echoes through the hallway.

Even these wards are not going to be spared.

Almost immediately, she hears a familiar voice shouting in the Asgardian tongue above the din.

Frigga is sweeping through the ranks of healers, blue and silver cirrus dust trailing in her wake – a diaphanous cloak of the finest magic that loops and dances around the injured warriors.

Jane is amazed to see the wounded disappear as soon as Frigga's spells touch them, leaving the healing chambers empty save for the queen, her shieldmaidens and a clueless mortal.

The injured have barely been magicked away when a long, thin sword materialises in Frigga's hands. A strange, white glow seems to shaft through her, casting a harsh contrast of darkness and light on her physical self and Jane thinks that her eyes have never looked more otherworldly...or eerily colourless.

If the legends speak of the Asgardian queen as a _seiðrkona_, or a_ fjölkunnigrkona…_then what is Frigga really capable of if she's ranked the most powerful of the Aesir goddesses?

Jane takes a tentative step forward, her curiosity overriding her anxiety as the shieldmaidens take their places next to Frigga. Still, they stand a little distance away from the queen who stands alone in the front.

"For Asgard, my shieldmaidens."

Frigga's commanding voice drifts over to her as the heavy doors burst open, followed by a telltale glow of a shield snapping in place. Spell upon spell is chanted over the expansive shield, reinforcing its thickness and strength. But the Svartalfar are barely bothered by Asgardian magic, countering it with their own erosive ones until the veil of protection finally shimmers and disappears.

When that happens, Frigga's first swing of the blade beheads the first elf that it meets and neatly slices through the gaps in the armour of three others. They collapse into a soundless heap, sprawled on the ground as her sword flicks again to cut through another four. All around the queen, the shieldmaidens are similarly caught up in the fight, their movements matching one another's in a deadly twirl of well-rehearsed thrusts and parries.

The last elf crumples in a choked gurgle by Frigga's feet as silence descends upon the hall.

"Back into the darkness they must go," the queen murmurs and tucks the sword away the way Jane has seen Loki do. With a wave of her hand, the fallen elves are swallowed into a forgotten dimension, the battle-worn hardness in her features melting to give way to an anxiety that seems to pulsate from her narrowed eyes and furrowed brows. "It is time."

Jane puzzles over her cryptic words just as delicate, blue-grey plumes of a bird of prey replaces the sword in Frigga's hands. In a blink, the gossamer shroud of magic that had earlier girdled the wounded now encircles her. Instantly, Frigga's Aesir form morphs and bends before dissolving into the neutral colours of the chambers.

Except that it isn't _nothing_, Jane realises incredulously as an odd shape materialises in a shower of golden dust before her.

In place of where Frigga used to stand is a magnificent peregrine falcon tinted in overlapping colours of blue, grey and white.

_What the hell is that th-_

The gentle sweep of feathers at the tip of the falcon's wings brushes her cheek and Jane hears the words as clearly as though someone has spoken them aloud.

_Stay safe in the meantime, dear Jane. I shall return._

"I-" She's at a loss for anything else to say as the bird leaps into the air and disappears out of the window, propelled by the first burst of the air currents circling above the healing stations.

oOo

Buoyed by Mjolnir, Thor allows the furious winds of the cyclone to carry him into its eye. He hits the ground hard when the wind currents still suddenly and finds himself locked in a tall, spherical bubble lit by an unseen source of red and yellow light that stings his eyes.

Abruptly, the bubble collapses into obscuring mist as the image of the Accursed one shimmers into being in his peripheral vision. In response, Mjolnir streaks into the image and falls straight through the illusion. It returns to his hands just as another illusion appears, reminiscent of Loki's games that had driven him countless times to exasperation.

Thor determines that he will not be played for a fool again. Not by Loki and certainly not by the Accursed one.

"I tire of your games, Malekith. Show yourself and let us end this once and for all!"

A chuckle echoes through the mist, everywhere and nowhere.

_Son of Odin, we have barely just begun. _

There's a strange tugging at his guts that makes him twist around. As soon as he does, horrified disbelief contorts his features as Jane steps out of the mist, a Svartalfar dagger protruding from her stomach. Her lips are bloodless and her face is scrunched up in agony, her hands grasping the hilt of the blade as she tries to pull it out of her body. She falls to her knees in front of him and he staggers backwards, crushed by the look of desperation on her face and the bloodied hands that she stretches out to him.

_Please, won't you help me, Thor? _

"No, you are an illusion," he whispers in shock, steeling himself against the onslaught of emotions that this image stirred in him. "A mere sleight of hand, a trick of the darkest magic. The Jane I know is safe." Thor raises Mjolnir, expecting it to pull him into the air and away from this wretched scene, but it is oddly heavy and unresponsive in his hand.

_We will never be safe, brother._

"A mere sleight of hand," he repeats feverishly, holding onto this verbal anchor like it's his only lifeline.

The image of Jane is whisked away and replaced by a body so broken that Thor only recognises it by the clothes on it.

The plain, drab garments worn by Loki during his incarceration.

He gasps, the sound extraordinarily loud in his own ears.

Unable to help himself, he takes a shaky step closer, then wishes he didn't. The body is sliced from chest to hip, skin perfectly filleted from bones.

_Asgard and all the realms will fall._

Loki's prone form dissolves into the All-father who lies in his sleep with both eyes hollowed out of its sockets. The gold tinge that surrounds his bed has long faded into grey as life and power leak out of the once-mighty Odin.

Its significance is not lost on him.

And then there are tears. There's also a sharp pounding in his head, a throbbing that drives away all attempts at reason. He pushes a hard fist into his temple and over his aching eyes, willing the hurt away.

Thor opens his eyes to see the form of Odin crumple into itself-

There's a brief moment of lucidity before images of his friends' ghastly faces slide past him in a myriad of illusions woven from most the heinous parts of his nightmares. They simply chip further away at his purpose and his failing grasp on reality.

Just earlier he was talking to them, standing by their side as they began the charge against the Svartalfar. Now he's forced to confront the fear that he will lose all of them…including himself.

Slowly, it's as though the time is reversed, rewound to play the worst moments he can ever remember in recent history. He sees himself as a boy again, full of lofty ambitions as he openly proclaims his abhorrence for the Jotnar. In the next second, he is a banished man who cannot hoist Mjolnir from the muddy ground. And in the next, he mourns a brother who he thinks he has lost to the void.

Moments that he wishes that could have turned out differently. Yet they pursue him relentlessly, until he lets go of Mjolnir to clap both hands over his eyes in a bid to black them out.

Only until he's worn ragged does a low, gravelly voice rings out mockingly from nowhere.

"There are such treasures to be found in your memories, son of Odin."

"No! Stop, please-," he whispers imploringly into the sudden silence, immobilised by the boundaries of the pervasive mist.

As soon as he speaks however, Thor feels a gentle, comforting brush against his face and he blinks through the wetness that obscures his sight. A small shadow flits high over his head and beats its wings urgently through the thick fog, a loud hunting cry issuing from its beak.

_Mother_.

Swiping hard at his eyes, he gets to his feet, not even recalling how he'd found himself on his knees, depending only on the blue-grey peregrine falcon that is his only defence at this critical moment. With each circle the falcon makes, he feels the cobwebs tearing away as though an impatient hand is thrust through their very centre and sweeping every last strand away.

She is the only illusion that Malekith hadn't managed to conjure. Not when she is so near.

Hefting Mjolnir, he moves, finally unencumbered by Accursed one's paralysing visions.

In these precious seconds where Malekith's magic is rendered impotent by the queen's own power, Thor lets Mjolnir loose in a trajectory that ends satisfyingly at the softest, most breakable point in the elf's neck.

oOo

Raw jubilation is followed by incredulous disbelief when the fall of the Svartalfar army heralds an impossible wall of fire that seems to advance from the distant horizon. The rapturous cheers fade into low murmurs that make fear a tangible entity as the Asgardian soldiers wrestle with the incomprehensibility of the extraordinary sight.

A hush falls over the vast, ruined plains and Loki takes the opportunity to retreat to his chosen vantage point where he will go unnoticed unless he chooses to reveal himself.

By contributing to the convenient fall of Malekith, he leaves Surtur a clear path to a sleeping king, where he expects that certain _grievances_ will be aired in a very…public battle. And it'll be critical enough to reorder the balance of power in the cosmos, remake all allegiances and shatter the liminal spaces that separate dimensions.

And the newly-forged realms emerging from the dust and ashes will belong to him to rule as he sees fit.

That much Surtur has promised through a series of veiled threats, wheedling and persistent entreaties.

Loki smirks mirthlessly; it's not a thought that generates any excitement in him. In fact, it never had, except during a misguided time he spent under Thanos's stranglehold. They're nothing more than seductive entrapments, grander and more flamboyant, tailored to appeal to the vanity he will not deny exists in him. But without the delusions of grandeur driven only by Thanos's single-minded aims, he knows that his own plans had always been subtler, more cutting, entirely undecipherable by all but few – and specifically fashioned for the gullible.

In fact, he fully expects to be cast aside if Surtur subjugates all the realms under his thumb the moment the All-father no longer remains a standing obstacle. The only fascinating prospect of this pending duel is that there would be a number of unforeseen consequences for Asgard and the Nine, and one that he would be instrumental in orchestrating.

And he would have it no other way, especially if it means to be resolutely in control of his own senses and mind throughout it all.

A strange movement to his left scatters Loki's grim musings into the wind as he whips his eyes skyward. He sees a falcon circling the carnage as it deftly wings its way through the intermittent bolts of lightning still streaking across the dark sky, its unusual vocalisations somehow coalescing into a single, familiar sound.

_Loki. _

For a second time, that voice calls out his name.

He trains his eyes on the bird as it makes a swift, breathtaking dive in its descent, finally landing in a flutter of ruffled feathers on his pauldron. Its unusual markings on the underside of its body are its most defining characteristics and in an instant, he knows who has come to seek him.

"My queen," he says stoically as he looks at the majestic bird that eyes him calmly.

_My son. _

That familial relation is stated unequivocally, leaving no room for a rejection of that title.

Deigning not to answer, he swallows hard and turns his gaze back to the battle instead. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

_I know your heart, Loki. And I know that it has never lain with destruction. I know that you are more than what you want to make of yourself, or what others make of you._

"Then you know what I intend to do?" He demands more harshly than he intends. But in the presence of the woman whom he used to call Mother, Loki simply feels the rush of the turmoil that returns after he thought he'd managed to put away.

He cannot be himself when he is around her, not when all she had done was to wear him down with unremitting declarations of her love, her approval and her trust during his incarceration. Time and again, he wishes he knows why the smallest gesture from her has always had the power to make him question himself or why her opinion still matters when it shouldn't.

The falcon simply cocks its head in understanding.

_I had always known, my son. _

Loki looks at the bird with narrowed eyes. "So you hope to change it," he says softly as he turns back to face the fiery horizon. "Just as we all stand on the cusp of change."

Her troubled sigh is a slight flutter of feathers that gently displaces the air around him.

_I cannot change what I don't know. From the very moment the fire demon broke free in Midgard, the future is all but obscured from my sight, only that change is certain and momentous. The All-father is defenceless in his sleep, Loki._

He merely arches a brow in challenge, unmoved by the abrupt plea he thinks he hears. "A fitting end, wouldn't you say?"

_I cannot fault you for your resentment and anger, Loki. Were I to say that the All-father is blameless, I would turn us all into liars. I cannot ignore my duplicitous part in agreeing to hide your birthright from you and I know that our actions have sown many seeds of disharmony and destruction. And if I cannot convince you to alter your plans based on your connections to us, your family, then I will ask you to consider that the great rupture in all the dimensions of the known universe, should the All-father's life be taken by the might of Surtur, just as the Odin-force cannot be unleashed freely without its wielder to control it._

He shakes his head slowly. "So is that all that you're asking of me – to alter my plans for the greater good of the cosmos? I thought you knew me better than that, Mother."

_Consider someone else, Loki._

"Who?"

He gasps involuntarily as the falcon sweeps the familiar grounds of the healing rooms into sight. Among the bodies and the healers, he only sees a lone figure who works tirelessly to preserve the lives of a people who aren't even her own. There's a worried, tense cast about her that clearly belies the anxiety she feels about the injured, an unspoken wide-eyed apprehension that he recognises all too well.

Jane Foster.

It's an imperfectly perfect vision that Loki distantly knows the queen is deliberately presenting; the mortal's cheek is smudged with dirt and blood and her hair in disarray from her labours, stirring up a thousand memories of a time he tries even now, to deliberately forget. Of a mistake that he should have known better than to have made.

A knowing voice slips into his mind as he hungrily peruses the scene for details he might have missed.

The falcon flaps its wings once.

_Do you know, that she hasn't stopped asking or talking about you from the moment Thor found her on the Asbru bridge?_

He isn't so foolish as to think that her anxiety is spent for him alone.

"This is where you think more of me than you should, _Mother_," Loki bites out with a harsh emphasis on the last word. "I simply tire of the mortal."

The short, sharp vocalisation of the falcon strangely enough, seems to come out as a tinkle of laughter that he doesn't expect.

_Whatever I had foreseen of your time in Svartalfheim, I could never have foreseen this. Jane Foster is safe, Loki. You have seen to her safety by bringing her back to Asgard. It was a wise choice and she would be better protected here than she would be in Midgard, for now. _

He finds that he cannot tear his eyes off the scene in the healing chambers. "Perhaps."

_There exists yet, a place for both of you. _

"What is that supposed to mean?" He cuts in sharply as the Frigga's enchantment is replaced by his view of the battlefield and the burning horizon.

_You're my son, Loki but many times I think I know you better than you know yourself. _

"Do you?" He counters stiffly and meets the falcon's unflinching gaze that burns into his own green one. "Haven't you known me to do what I want, no matter the cost? I was born out of discord and lies and they'll be the last things that I will sow." There is a hollow ring to those words as soon as he says them, but he will not back down now. "Because even gods can die."

The bird ruffles its feathers once again, looking remarkably as though it's expressing an impossible mix of loving exasperation and sharp determination.

_The Liesmith can fool many, Loki Odinson, but you have never been able to fool your mother. You will not be lost to me, Loki, because I will not allow it. If you choose to forget everything, only remember this. Remember that there are those who will always love you as you are, and I do not just speak of myself. Let this be your guide. _

With a loud screech, the falcon takes to the sky once again, leaving him more troubled than when he first began.

oOo

The distance from the healing rooms to the palace is short and Jane finds herself ushered by a line of shieldmaidens down the same long hallway that she used on her way here. Somewhere along the way, the queen joins them again.

The ground itself – the very foundations of Asgard – is now trembling beneath her feet, like the slight tremors of an earthquake she has only felt once in her entire life on a research fieldtrip to Alaska. Her hands are clammy and her heart's pounding hard as she struggles to keep her feet firmly planted on the uneven floor.

It's also strangely warm, so unlike the comfortable, cool temperatures of mid-spring that seem to characterise Asgardian weather for the short time she's been here. She's soaked to the skin in sweat and she swipes her limp hair impatiently out of her eyes as her feet unconsciously take her to where there's a clear view of the vistas and plains.

Her jaw drops when she catches sight of the horizon.

Asgard is tinged an unnatural red, as though a stifling cloud of heat has descended over its clear skies. There's a massive, towering wall of flames stretching from ground to sky in the distance, forcing the sea's agitated waves to crash against the shore in massive, explosive bursts of water.

Jane blinks rapidly to make sure she isn't imagining any of it.

She isn't.

The fire isn't quenched by the great sea that encircles the city; it's _consuming_ it with its unstoppable thirst.

"Oh my god."

Plumes of thick, black smoke are following in the wake of the fire, erasing the wondrous skyline into faint outlines and desaturating the crimson landscape a dull monochrome.

Asgard is burning, just as Earth burns.

The heat is clawing up her skin and up her neck in a choking hold. Her breaths are laboured and Jane starts counting the seconds before breathable air runs out.

The world abruptly narrows down to a colossal, thousand-foot presence that scorches every inch of ground in a fifty-foot radius, so large that its form cannot be taken in from where she stands. A long, thin cord-like _thing_ whips through the air and powders the debris of the battle, its reach sweeping far out to shatter the outer battlements of-

_No, no…_

Jane dives out of the way of its path, slamming hard onto her shoulder and knees as she hits the ground hard with a bone-shattering crack.

From a distance, she hears an enraged shout as a shield – translucent and luminous in its protective magic – goes up before her eyes but it comes a nanosecond too late.

It's a tail – a goddamned, gargantuan _tail_ – she realises in frozen disbelief as she fights off the waves of eye-watering pain. A prehensile thing that's attached to the being that the Aesir talk about with reverent horror.

All around her, the Aesir are scattering as fragments of crumbling Asgardian architecture fly in all directions as those who defended Asgard from Malekith's army now find themselves completely helpless when faced with an undefeatable force of a primeval element.

Dragging herself into a small nook for shelter, Jane takes a moment to steady her uneven breathing. But the temperature continues to rise until it's as though the walls themselves are aflame. Her Aesir cloak gives her little defence against the heat. It's better at keeping her warm than cool and now, it's simply drenching her further in perspiration.

She shrugs it off unthinkingly.

Jane counts to ten, then stumbles out again, heading towards Frigga's circle of protection, looking up to see the Aesir already within gesturing frantically to her. Rolling again as Surtur's tail makes a second sweep of the place, she barely avoids the crack in the ground that widens to become a deep, gaping chasm. The next vibration tearing through the ground convinces her that it would be easier to stay in a crawl, so she does just that, moving by the excruciating inch toward the boundaries of the flickering shield.

God, the pain…

A flaming sword joins the tail but is stopped mid-swing by a tiny spinning speck of dark red and silver in the air that hits Surtur squarely in the chest.

Uru meets fire and twilight in a glowing white ball of sparks, smoke and disintegrating metal.

Thor is flung straight to the ground after the brief clash and Jane scrambles onto her knees just enough to make out that he's bleeding from the side of his head, dishevelled and blackened with soot but thankfully, very much alive.

A blast of magic from Surtur, like a casual afterthought, keeps him writhing and incapacitated on the ground.

_Son of Odin, you underestimate me. _

Jane hears the voice of a thousand cackling flames in her head as clearly as though it had been spoken into her ear.

"You underestimate Asgard," Thor roars in fury and rights himself in a stubborn gesture of defiance, readying for a second blow as Mjolnir spins to a blur on its fulcrum and takes him back into the air in one continuous movement.

Surtur's tail whips itself around his body and Thor once again crashes to the ground. Again and again it happens, until it becomes painfully clear that she's witnessing the twisted tale of a heroic David who loses against an undefeatable Goliath. His last fall is particularly violent and her scream is lost in the thunderous roar that Surtur's sword makes as its sharp tip scythes through the thickening smoke. It smashes into the ground, deepening, widening the fissures made by the tremors.

A column of flame bursts upwards and makes a restless whirl in the air before it settles into a semblance of an inferno wrapped within the figure of a faceless giant. Behind it, the curtain of fire reappears and spreads until its base spans as far as the eye can fathom, snapping and hissing its discontent in sounds and cackles that only its master understands.

_Shit._

Several hundred metres to her left, Jane can barely make out the unmoving figure of the exhausted god of thunder. Behind her is the shield of Frigga that's no longer within her line of sight. There isn't any way she can reach anyone when all around her is heat, smoke and flames-

"You underestimate _me_, demon."

Thor's words are repeated in a stronger, more commanding voice of another as the oppressive air lifts in a sudden, palpable shift. The blurred edges visible in the fog sharpen under a golden hue that flows from a source that Jane can't make out. But she simply concentrates on breathing, gulping in mouthfuls of oxygen that her lungs are demanding.

The fog finally clears to reveal a writhing demon encased in an immense, cylindrical column of gold and white. Red flames twist, warp and wind over the rush of light, pushing against this caging force.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jane sees the flash of a golden spear, followed by the unmoving figure of the All-father. All around her, there's a collective rush of relief and joy from the Aesir at the reappearance of their King.

Yet even this celebration is short-lived, as Odin's outstretched hands are trembling badly with the effort of keeping the long column steady. The All-father is hemming in the fire demon, she realises, harnessing the Odin-Force that lies all around them to bind Surtur's hands and feet.

But Odin's efforts are tiring him too quickly. More quickly than it should for one who has just emerged from the healing sleep.

Jane watches in horror as his arms fall limply to his side, stumbling as he clutches his heart. The glow around him dims the same moment that the crimson fire burns over the boundaries of its cylindrical restraint.

Fire bursts out with obliterating force, each lick of flame separating into a slew of tiny, fire demons rushing outward in a ferocious motion-

Only to be met with a fortifying wall of cool, green and gold light that pulverises every one that collides into it. In the chaos, a fully-armoured, horned figure cuts into the fire's advancing path, replicating so rapidly until there are doubles of him everywhere closing the perimeter, restraining Surtur within this boundary.

Jane's jaw comes unhinged at the sight as she struggles to reconcile what she sees with what she's feeling.

_Loki._

He's throwing his knives in all directions as he whirls and leaps to dodge their mad attack, a deadly dance that's oddly reminiscent of a martial artist's calculated steps as his blades tear through – _decimating_ – the tiny, flying fiends. The doubles do the same, yet even they, like him, aren't spared the demons' bites as they singe him in places where his knives don't reach.

An indeterminate time seems to pass by as he barely holds them at bay even with the immense power and magic he commands. From where she is, Jane sees his concentration etching deep lines in his face that's made paler in the blinding light.

Loki stumbles, caught finally by a newly forged stream of flying demons that release a scorching blast straight into his chest and side.

"Loki!"

Jane's heart leaps into her throat as her shout is echoed by a roar that comes from her left. She turns around painfully to see Thor whipping Mjolnir into a spinning pinwheel.

The hammer runs into the shield and boomerangs straight back into Thor's hands without making a dent.

Nothing can get out of Loki's shield, just as nothing can get _through_ it.

An unearthly blue tinge covers his skin and Jane gasps as she sees his eyes bleed red. Just like in Svartalfheim when his magic had been returned to him-

There isn't time to contemplate this recurrence as Loki conjures a small, box-like object tinted blue by the dark, inky swirls that rise from its unfathomable depths.

It matches the colour of his skin, Jane realises, deepening in its hue just as his skin shimmers cobalt.

He thrusts it out, releasing a storm of the harshest winter within the space of his shield, scattering the hordes of fiends into nothing.

The ancient fire sputters, then seethes again, unquenched by the intense cold. It surges through the cloudburst of ice, propelling the incapacitating cold back into its originating source.

The combined blasts of power tosses him into the air, dissolving his carefully-erected shield. Like Thor before him, Loki finally hits the ground hard and stays deathly still.

That terrifying sight is making Jane move out of instinct, bringing back a flood of memories borne out of their shared time in Svartalfheim. There's fear too great to ignore when she realises that she's has never seen him this way before, not even in Svartalfheim when he was rendered powerless by his restraints.

She tries to get to him, then cries out with the pain that wrecks her fractured shoulders and knees.

_Focus, Jane! Think! _

Yet there is little that Jane's considering about the sanity of her own actions, merely obeying the instinct that has her reaching out to _him_ and not to Thor as she would have done just two weeks ago.

All she knows is that she _wants_ to get to him. And she'll only ask why much, much later.

Jane puts another shaky step past the first, determined to bridge that distance. A shudder works into her frame. Her throat is hoarse from the incoherent shouts that she dimly realises are actually coming from her-

She makes it halfway there before her own limbs falter, ignoring the chagrined shouts of Frigga and whoever is watching the spectacle. Dropping to her knees a distance away, she barely feels them scrape against the rough ground as she sees that Loki's truly out cold. His pale colouring has returned but blood is flowing from the sides of his head, visible even through the small spaces of his helmet. The small, boxy object that he wielded is nowhere in sight.

Noise is all around, Jane realises, as soon as the roaring in her ears fade a little. Sounds of enraged shouts, flutters of shock, uncertain murmurs register on her overheated senses…amidst the awful swishes of fire rapidly reassembling, rebuilding itself into an impenetrable wall.

A shockwave like a crackling electrical charge, rips through the air in response. It knocks her sideways, whipping her hair into her face and then there's light so bright that she's forced to close her eyes-

She stubbornly blinks them open again to see the All-father standing in front of Surtur, Gungnir gripped tightly in his hand. Ragged, bruised and worn from the initial skirmish, there's still an undeniable air of majesty and power radiating from him.

Somehow, it's _alive_ and so different from anything that her senses can neatly classify or categorise…like a thousand insects that crawl over her skin, raising the fine hairs on her neck, its strange, permeating scent of ash and stardust settling all over her-

Odin stalks forward and hurls Gungnir into the wall of flame.

But the fireworks and the quakes and whatever else she expects do not come this time.

Instead, there's only a thin, long line of vapour that is left of both gods, already dissipating in the light of the breaking dawn.

* * *

"_That one too is numbered among the Æsir whom some call the slanderer of the Æsir and originator of deceptions and a stain of the Æsir and humans. His name is Loki or Lopt, son of the giant Farbauti. Laufey or Nál is his mother and his brothers are Byleistr and Helblindi. Loki is fair and handsome in appearance, bad of mind, very changeable in his ways. He had that form of wisdom beyond other men, which is called cunning, and he uses tricks in everything. He constantly brought the Æsir into great difficulty, and often rescued them with deceits." – Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, Chapter 33_

_A/N: That paragraph above is pretty much my inspiration for the character of Loki and I thought it appropriate to include that here. _

_Some explanation of the battle: I've taken quite a bit of liberties and creative license in this chapter. Surtr in the original mythology, is actually a Jötunn. He's instrumental in the events of Ragnarök - the end of all things - and is pretty much the inspiration for Marvel's Surtur. _

_I didn't want Ragnarök to happen in this story (somehow I thought it was way too epic for it) so there're several elements deliberately missing from it - such as the Sword of Twilight or the Eternal Flame. What you're reading about Surtur/the battle in Asgard is based on several sources that I cobbled together, including the Marvel universe; it's written so that Asgard survives and by extension, so do all the other Realms, but the balance of power in the cosmos has shifted with Odin (temporarily?) out of the picture._

_Thanks again for reading and reviewing! _


	14. Chapter 14

Jane Foster flits like a ghost from hallway to hallway after her recent release from the healers, wearing an expression that suggests she's more adrift than she'd like to let on. Today is no different, except that she has wandered into a part of the great library where he had always hidden as a child to peruse books that weighed more than him.

Loki frowns. For someone who purports to be a woman driven by the science of the stars, such behaviour is odd to say the least. He studies her for a moment and notices that her time in the healing houses, this time as a patient, has still left her a bit more wan than she usually is—

He shakes away thoughts of her appearance and convinces himself that it's undoubtedly yet another failing of her mortal body. Giving her no warning, he glides silently up to her and stands just far enough to give her space to jump to express her shock.

"I never thought that you would ever discover this place."

A short, high-pitched squeak escapes her mouth, just exactly as he'd predicted. He calmly takes in her glower as she jumps and turns on him, delighting perversely in how easily mortals can be startled out of their wits.

Even Jane Foster, who shows a peculiar sense of not being afraid at the worst times, isn't immune to being at the receiving end of his mischief.

She blinks twice, disbelief and annoyance pinching some lines into her face, then blurts, "You're here."

His shoulders tremble slightly with silent laughter at the less-than-intelligent conversation that she's initiating. Jane Foster, if nothing else, can be a passable source of amusement in this drab place.

"Where else would I be?" He questions mildly.

"Uh," she waves weakly to the shelves, "I don't know. Terrorising some poor Asgardian? Recovering in your room?"

He sees through her forced nonchalance straightaway. "Believe me, Miss Foster. There's nothing you've said that I've not already done."

She snorts, still looking as though she can't believe he's standing in front of her. "Oh."

"You seem…distressed."

"Are these books on spells?"

They speak at the same time, the words coming together like a jumbled record of unintelligible sounds.

Loki gives her a dark smirk, recognising the deliberate switch in topic. He takes pity on her obvious discomfort by turning his gaze to the rows of books that contain the forgotten lores of the realms.

Nodding once at them, he says, "These are history books, no doubt authored by poor scribes who laboured under the order of the All-father."

She looks disappointed for a brief moment, then raises a hand to swipe a finger across them, disturbing the dust that has settled on their thick spines. "They haven't been touched in a long time."

"No."

The weight of her stare falls on him and Loki feels it as keenly as he had on that day she accompanied Odinson to his prison. Her temerity no longer infuriates him as it had but it irritates him nonetheless. Yet if the animosity between them is spent, what then, lies in its place?

"When you have finished your perusal of my being…" he trails off pointedly when he sees her hesitation.

"I spoke with Thor and Frigga. They told me some things that I didn't know."

Loki stiffens immediately. "If you believe whatever you hear, then you would certainly live up to your name as a foolish mortal. Go ahead, draw your own conclusions, Jane. I don't doubt that they'll be creative fabrications of your projections of me," he waves a disinterested arm in her direction, "and entirely inaccurate ones as well."

She falls silent, no doubt reassessing her original conclusions. He simply watches her closely, not bothering to explain himself at all. There's little that he will defend of his actions in freeing Surtur, just as he has no inclination to speak of his role in bringing about the demon's downfall.

"And to think I was actually worried," she says speculatively.

_What?_

He snaps his head back in her direction. There isn't a smidgen of dishonesty in her statement and it unsettles him. "You move me with your concern. Don't be too quick to show it for a-"

"Loki, stop."

He does, out of surprise than obedience. Her returning glare is ferocious but something else is written all too clearly on her face.

"We've had this…argument already," she points out.

"So we did," he acknowledges curtly. It still burns too brightly in his mind that to revisit it would be akin to forcing an old wound to reopen.

His invitation to leave this conversation where it should belong – in the past – does the exact opposite.

"Look, I know what you've done in New York. And in New Mexico. But a week ago, I also thought you were dead. You and Thor and…so many others. When I saw you knocked off your feet after Surtur's fires…burned. And I wasn't as happy…no, I mean, I thought the worst," she finishes lamely with a scowl directed at him.

"You conveyed that so eloquently."

"Is it so hard to believe I'm actually happy that you're alive?"

He purses his lips until they become a thin, white line. "The Aesir are knit together more strongly than a human's weak body," he tells her in deflection, taking a mocking look down her slight form for emphasis.

"Tell me something I don't already know," she mutters. "So why the hell are you here? Now that you've finished throwing my effort at being polite and my worry back in my face?"

He holds out his hand, Frigga's dagger materialising in it a second later. "To return this. I believe it's yours, no matter what you say."

Like she did the first time, Jane Foster makes no move to take it, simply eyeing it with the same amount of trepidation and distrust as she'd done before.

"I thought I gave it to you."

Loki frowns at her reply, closing his hand briefly around the dagger's hilt in frustration. Is the woman plain stubborn, stupid…or both, to reject the queen's gift? Or did it remind her so much of her failure in Odin's tests that she will not even associate herself with this useful weapon?

The All-father should no longer be a tormenting memory, Loki thinks, seeing as he has closed himself off in a dimension rift, locked in eternal battle with one of the most heinous foes that can ever walk Yggdrasil's pathways.

Odin's legacy, already confined to the realm of myth in humanity's pathetically short memory banks, will only live on in the Realm Eternal.

"You did. But I have no use for it any longer, so I'm returning it," he explains slowly as though he's doing to a dim-witted child, making certain that she hears the condescension creeping into his voice.

"I guess you don't want to accept anything that isn't rightfully yours?"

He doesn't miss a beat, stepping closer just to unsettle her. A wicked smile crosses his face when he hears her breath hitch. "My dear Jane, surely you know by now that I take what I want, even if it isn't rightfully mine."

"I don't doubt that," she says indignantly, looking anywhere but at him, then hurriedly gestures back to the dagger. "Or give it back to the queen if you don't want it."

"A gift, once given, shouldn't be returned, especially for something as precious as this. It's the biggest insult otherwise, to the giver."

Frowning, she reconsiders and tentatively reaches for the dagger with a grimace. "Well, we wouldn't want that, do we?"

Loki nods, watching her closely. She's such an open book, so easily read, so easily _manipulated_. But is she truly worth the effort when there is much larger game to stalk?

Shrugging once, he tells her curtly, "Good."

It's probably his most conciliatory form of farewell to someone who had started out as an illusory, static figure into whom he channelled his hate and anger. In the flesh, Jane Foster brings too much order to his chaos.

Loki snaps around sharply and prepares to walk away. Handing back that dagger had merely been a symbolic act of severing his last tie to her.

And there's nothing more than he'd like now than to-

"Wait!"

He stops, but doesn't turn around.

She takes advantage of his silence to go on. "What will you do now?"

Loki stills, buying some time for himself as he considers what to say.

Trust her to ask the very question to which he doesn't really have an appropriate answer. In fact, he's finding himself mortifyingly back where he began the moment he woke up in Eir's care in the aftermath of the battle: on Asgard, a place that he thought he'd so thoroughly renounced when he left Jane Foster in the big, clumsy hands of Odinson.

"I will leave Asgard," he tells her finally, putting his best-laid plans to rest and opts for the simplest, most obvious solution. His permanent, _voluntary_ exile from the Realm Eternal is the only pardon that he will receive at the very least for the part he played in the battle.

"For good?"

This time he does turn around, seeing her wring her hands once in apparent nervousness, her jitters so obvious to him when he has all but learned the nuances of her tiniest movements in the days past.

Curiosity, rather than disdain, makes him raise his brows pointedly in question. "Likely so. Why do you ask?"

She sighs deeply, then confesses, "I've been thinking. Actually, I've been going crazy with nothing but my thoughts for company."

Loki cants his head in interest. "You are afraid of being alone."

"No, I'm not," she denies firmly, "but I would rather not be. That's a difference."

He finds Jane Foster's stilted admission rather amusing. Loneliness, apart from death, had always seemed to be one of humanity's greatest fears. It's a trait that hasn't changed in thousands of years.

"You needn't worry, Miss Foster," he tells her evenly, "If you do indeed choose to stay in Asgard, there would be plenty here to occupy your mind, enough so that you'll forget what it means to be alone. Its marvels would keep you ecstatic for an age to come, even after you tire of Odinson's one-dimensional noble goodness. As a guest of the royal family, you will have servants to tend your every need, the queen herself for company at times and silly, foppish courtiers tripping over themselves to make your acquaintance."

An ironic, bitter smile curves her lips. "Yeah, that sounds loads better than being locked up in a high, ivory tower with a long braid of hair for a ladder."

"I'm unfamiliar with that tale," he says with a frown.

"Never mind that," she winces and waves it away with an expression too peculiar for his liking. "You know what you said days ago? I think you might have been right. Asgard has never been and will never be my home. The only hard part is going on, moving forward when you've seen too much."

Loki finds himself agreeing with her last sentence. "Perhaps." And perhaps he will look back on this moment in a hundred years and finally be able to dismiss _her_ as an insignificant memory, a small blight in a tumultuous times when the realms were shaken up.

Deciding to leave her indulging in humanity's penchant for sentimental ruminations, he takes a step away, fully intending to leave before he gets mired in yet another soul-searching moment into which Jane Foster has a bad habit of dragging him. "I will bid you farew-"

"Actually, I might have an idea," she hurriedly puts in, as though afraid he'd disappear on her. "Or…a request, I guess, if you want to call it that."

He sees her take a deep breath, like a swimmer taking a plunge into a waterfall.

And then she tells him something that isn't what he expects at all.

The first sentence out of her mouth surprises him; the second astounds him. The more she talks, the more he finds himself mortifyingly warming to the idea. But the time she's finished telling him what she sees and wants – with a spark of inspired boldness he doesn't expect –, Loki finds himself confounded, fairly speechless and possibly…quite possibly, desperately hopeful for the first time in hundreds of years.

Her palpable excitement lingers as she walks away, leaving him staring after her absently, his mind already turning to the dimensions that aren't known to Asgard.

oOo

When her eldest son would have once been in the centre of the revelries, he is now withdrawing to the long balcony for a moment of solitude that she fears interrupting.

She should have known he would have sought refuge away from the crowd.

Frigga pauses, then moves to join him as he stares silently out at the towering spirals that still show the recent signs of destruction, despite the unceasing work of their best smiths and mages to restore the Realm Eternal to its original glory.

"It will take a long time."

He's the first to speak, letting out a heavy sigh that follows that pronouncement. But he leaves the vagueness hanging in his statement, trusting that she, as his mother and as Asgard's queen, will understand just what he's trying to say.

She does.

He has changed much. Clad in his finery, her son looks every inch the King, yet the weight has never looked more burdensome on him. When he had once been prone to brooding over insignificant matters pertaining to personal vanity, he now broods over Asgard and over all that has been lost.

And she thinks that he is now truly worthy to take his father's place.

Frigga clears her throat delicately. "It is a glorious burden you were always meant to carry."

He gives her a pinched look of disbelief and it's such an incongruous sight that she cannot help but laugh a little. Sobering, she places a light arm over his shoulder. The All-father had bequeathed the gift of the Odin-force to his son when he slipped into an unknown dimension to battle the fire demon. It's a shimmering aura that's intangible to all who are gifted with sight – surely the mark of a worthy heir to the throne – that he only discovered in the aftermath of the great battle.

"But I have faith in you. My king," she says simply.

Her affirmation brings some light back into his eyes. But it isn't enough to chase away the haunted melancholy that she knows is permanently etched there.

More quietly, he says, "Loki was always meant to be my counsel, Mother. By my side, helping me to be the king I should be when I finally take the throne."

"I know. But you will forge your own path."

It breaks her heart to see the loss that swirls in his eyes. Beyond the daunting task of being Asgard's King, there is much else to do: alliances to reaffirm, new ties to forge and a future to shape. She knows, however, that his younger brother has never been far from his mind, despite Loki's deliberate absence from the coronation and the celebration feasts.

Her sons' paths have forked the moment the impulsive decision was made to march into Jotunheim. She recalls it as clearly as she does the day they were put in her arms for the first time and feels the same mix of wistfulness and loss at the memories.

But Frigga refrains from saying anything more, because as both a mother and a queen, she also knows how to play her role.

It's a long moment before Thor stirs from his perusal of the brilliant constellations. Out there, the former ruler of Asgard – the All-father, _his_ father – guards the realms still. At least, it's the way Frigga knows he will choose to remember Odin Borson.

He gives her a small smile as he gestures to the liveliness inside. "I should return to the feast."

Frigga returns his smile softly, but doesn't join him as he returns to his friends. Instead, she turns back to the sky and looks up at the stars.

oOo

Thor is in the middle of accepting the toast when he sees them. Raising his goblet absently to his lips, He takes a surreptitious glance around and realises that they're only visible to him in his peripheral vision…and hidden from everyone else.

It's Jane, with Loki.

They're standing close together yet with a carefully maintained distance between them. But whether out of propriety, of pretence or by choice, he doesn't really know. Yet there're matching, conspiratorial looks on their faces, as though they share a secret no one else knows. And the way they're actually looking at each other-

Thor looks away for a moment. As much as there's an ache that he thinks he isn't able to articulate at present, there's also an equivalent measure of deep relief that he feels as he watches the both of them.

He takes a moment to consider these diverging paths that his mother spoke about. They're all unknown routes as unpredictable as the winding branches of Yggdrasil, still wrought with danger and mischief for as long as Loki treads them.

And he has centuries, if not millennia, to come to terms with that idea…and eternity to make peace with it.

A shout from the end of the table snatches his attention away from the shadowy balcony. Volstagg has just found himself in a lively argument with Sif and Hogun and Thor's wiling to bet that inebriation is its primary catalyst.

It wrangles a genuine smile from him, a welcome, momentary distraction.

But he's unwilling to lose both his brother again, as well as the woman whom he knows – or is slowly accepting – belongs elsewhere and also to…someone else.

Lifting his head and turning back in their direction, he squints up at-

Nothing.

There is nothing now but air and space where they were standing.

Thor blinks a few more times in surprise, a small, incredulous laugh issuing from his throat.

After a moment's deliberation, he lifts his goblet in that particular direction and drinks deeply from it, unable to ignore the strange swell of emotion rises along with the warming heat of the ale.

"Well played, Loki," he says, then glances at the empty spot again, still tasting the lingering bitter dregs in his throat as the twilight sky finally deepens into a midnight blue.

-Fin

_A/N: 'Incalculability' was originally intended to be a (Thor 2) alternate universe one-shot that would help me get Loki and Jane out of my system and I'm now shamefaced to admit that it was something I wanted to write to get over writer's burn-out of my other works-in-progress that are still yet unpublished. But the more I got into it, the bigger the story grew and I'll always be grateful to the support I received from other 'Lokaners' on Tumblr and for those who reviewed and read on this site. _

_I know I left the fates of Loki and Jane rather ambiguous here because it's difficult at this moment to imagine that they'd kiss and make up that easily in a relationship that's as complicated as theirs. But as someone who demands happy endings from other writers that I stalk, I'd like to think that they'll get there eventually. _

_As always, thank you for reading and for your reviews. You help make writing fanfiction worth it. _


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